Soap Gets In Your Claws
by LilLolaBlue
Summary: Like sands through the hourglass so are the days at the X-Mansion! Jean loves Scott, but he cant get his mojo working. Logan’s mojo’s working overtime with Femme Fatale & the Harlequin.But he still dreams of Jeannie. Will they? Wont they? Sex! Sin! Suds!
1. Smash Your Head Against the Wall

**SOAP GETS IN YOUR CLAWS**

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing but the characters I have created, but I'm still not making any money from this. Oh well. Can't buy me love, right?**_

**Chapter 1: Smash Your Head Against the Wall**

**New York Thruway- En-route to, Xavier Institute, Westchester New York 1974**

**I: Jean**

Jean Grey was driving her 1971 red Super Beetle at about ten miles over the speed limit, heading back to the X-Mansion with Logan in the passenger seat, his stained, dirty old cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes, asleep and snoring like an alcoholic beaver with a sinus condition attempting to chew down a petrified forest.

There was a half-drunk bottle of Molson's Canadian in his hand, and a few empties rolling around by his feet.

Jean could see the bottle slipping out of his hand as his grip weakened in sleep, and she took it from him and, for lack of anything else to do with it, wedged it between the seats.

She looked over at him, for a minute, and then looked away.

She had a problem.

A big problem.

And Logan was part of it.

They had become a good friends, over the years, despite getting off to a shaky start, and Jean knew that Logan was one clever little man. People who didn't know him well, even some of his students and fellow masks saw him as a drunken, uneducated, shirt-chasing oaf, because he carefully cultivated that image to cover over the fact he was an intelligent, well-read, master of several disciplines of martial-arts with about a hundred years of shrewdly looking after number one under his belt.

Jean respected Logan and she liked him, and that was why it bothered her, knowing the way he felt about her.

Because she just didn't find him attractive.

Logan had black hair, and lots of it, which she never liked in a man, and there was something about blue eyes that she found unsettling.

Especially Logan's.

Philosophers said that the eyes were the window to the soul, and, as a telepath, Jean knew that to be true.

But, all metaphysics aside, Logan was altogether too hairy, too burly, and too short. He was a Sherman tank of a man, comprised mostly of hair and stink and powered by beer and the worst kind of junk food.

Nor her type at all.

Scott, on the other hand, he could have been made for her. He was tall, smooth-skinned, brown-haired and brown-eyed, a thoughtful, educated, conventionally handsome man who was very self-possessed, rational, and even-tempered.

You could set your watch by Scott Summers, he never had a day of mercurial temperament in his life.

And, as he observed, all that hot stuff, it was for crazy nymphos and teenagers.

She and Scott had a beautiful, adult, committed relationship and a mature kind of tender physical love that was far more satisfying than any torrid series of dirty, raunchy cheap fucks.

The problem?

It was harder and harder for Jean to convince herself of that, especially with Scott becoming more remote with every passing day.

He hadn't touched her for months.

As for Logan, he may not have been Sean Connery, but she had it on good authority that if you were looking for all that hot stuff, for a torrid series of dirty, raunchy cheap fucks, he was definitely the guy to go to.

She knew he was the type who would keep his mouth shut, too.

But, it was no good, she thought, looking over at him.

There was just nothing about him that she found attractive.

Well, he did have a pretty good chest.

Nice arms, too.

And he was short, way too short, but he had good legs.

Especially his thighs, they appeared to be thick and muscular.

Good hands too, big for such a small guy, strong and sinewy.

And you know what they say about men with big hands.

And it wasn't as if he didn't advertise in his ancient, faded, painted-on Levis.

Then again, it wasn't as if Logan was an ugly man.

Not "Ma had to tie a pork chop around his neck to get the dog to play with him" kind of ugly. He wasn't pretty, but who said men had to be pretty? He had a strong jaw, and his nose was kind of big, but not in an offensive way, and he really wasn't bad-looking.

He looked like a man, didn't he?

She could live with blue eyes.

And men were supposed to be hairy, right?

Okay, so, despite being short, crude, hairy, and foul-mouthed, Logan was, in some ways, a reasonably attractive man.

Not to mention he had once burned for her with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns in supernova; that there was a time when it seemed to her that she was the only thing he wanted in the world.

There had to be something of that left, even after six or seven years of close association.

But, if she was going to have to go and seek fulfilment elsewhere, wasn't it a really bad idea to do it so close to home?

But, then again, what was she supposed to do? Go to the city and hang around in bars? Place a personal ad? Find a dating service for mutant superheroes?

Jean's mind was not on her driving and she crashed through a pothole.

"Shit!" she yelled.

_Snikt!_

Logan awoke with a snort.

"Sorry, Logan. Goddamn potholes."

He flipped up his hat, located his beer, finished it , looked over at her sleepily, and smiled.

"Lookit me, Jeannie, I'm wakin' up next to you. I like the idea of that." He said.

"I'm sure you do. Why don't you reach into your pants for something useful and get the toll money ready." Jean replied, curtly.

Sometimes she wished that she could be as cheerfully amoral as her good friend Liv Napier, the Harlequin, otherwise known as Napalm. Relative sobriety, the calmer waters of her mid-twenties, and the influence of her partner had smoothed out the more jagged of the kinks and chinks in the Harlequin's superhero armor, but she would never be the girl a nice guy wrote home to mother about.

When she had met Liv in 1966, when the powers that be at NYU made them room-mates, Napalm, though a certified genius, admitted she was pretty much a shanty Irish Brooklyn thug.

She had been cheerily and wildly degenerate; her free time when he wasn't in c;assor on the street doing her mask work was occupied by drinking, screwing, fighting, tinkering with cars and jacking off to superhero fuckbooks and comix while she listened to blues, rockabilly and the Who.

She got kicked out of the NYU dorms in 1967 for having a Mad Hatter's sex party with two fortyish beatnik gents, a brick of grass, a few hits of acid, a little legally-prescribed pharmaceutical heroin, some Chuck Berry records and an autographed copy of _Naked Lunch_ with a very personal inscription to Napalm from Uncle Bill, himself.

Liv was still cheerily and wildly degenerate, something her equally cheerily and wildly degenerate partner, the muscularly lustful Comedian appreciated greatly. Surely, it was some Trickster god who had conspired to release them into their own private wildly degenerate heaven of fighting other people, fucking each other, and laughing at the world that burned around their ears as they toasted each other with stout and Irish whiskey.

Liv Napier would never be respectable.

A goody-goody.

Like Jean was.

Napalm was around quite a bit, though. She had her regular Wednesdays with Logan starting four years before and in '72 she began teaching Evolutionary Biology two times a week.

He came up to the school to pick her up, sometimes, her partner.

The Comedian was a beast of a man, six feet, four inches and well over two hundred muscular pounds of mad, bad and dangerous to know.

He had been the red, white and blue pinup heart-throb for three generations of drooling American teenyboppers, who liked theirs tall, dark and homicidal. Indeed, at the ripe old age of 50 he had just done a centrefold for Cosmo wearing his trademark mask, his trademark smile, and his trademark guns.

And nothing else.

Nice, big guns, hard, heavy shiny nickel plated guns with long, thick barrels.

His fans may or may not have known that the Watchman was a laughingly amoral sociopath who did almost every dirty job in America with a certain hard-eyed élan. But what did they care? Between his crooked smile and his black leather and steel and stars and stripes uniform and his devilish Black Irish good looks, he was the kind of bad man a good woman knew well enough to leave alone.

Hence him and Napalm getting on like a house afire.

Although, being a Cosmo subscriber, despite the fact that she disapproved of his methods as a mask and considered Eddie Blake to be a woeful excuse for a human being, the sight of him naked, armed, and surrounded by American flags did give a girl a big Red, White and Blue lump in her throat.

Not that Jean got Cosmo for the nude centrefolds, or anything.

Not that she was disappointed when Cosmo approached Scott and he told them to go to Hell.

Not that she didn't keep Logan's layout taped to the bottom of the top drawer of her desk.

His cowboy hat, his claws, and a grin.

Is there a doctor in the house? No? How about a fireman?

Still, Napalm and Eddie Blake looked at each other with fierce intemperate lust, great loyalty and a wild, desperate kind of love.

Jean was jealous.

Napalm had it all.

Yeah, she had it all. She had managed to go out and find the one insane unhinged maniac who was more of a mad dog killer with a hair trigger temper capable of just about anything who was more of an insane unhinged maniac than she was.

The two of them would probably kill each other, someday.

But, fuck it, who wants to live forever, drinking tea and worrying about everything.

Oh, right.

Scott.

"And you had better take all those beer bottles with you when you leave my car. It's not a trash can, you know. You are such a slob!" Jean continued.

She wasn't sure why she was being so mean to him.

"Don't talk to me like I'm one of the kids! What's got into you?" Logan insisted.

_It's what hasn't got into me that's the problem._

"I'm just tired. That's all."

Tired.

Jean was tired, alright.

Tired of Scott being so mired in a combination of work, worry, and an endless cycle of guilt and recriminations about being an X-Man, being a mutant, and the state of the world in general that he was hardly aware he was alive, let alone her.

It was the little things that were beginning to sting.

Spring had just sprung, and as she and Logan drove onto the grounds, they passed some of the students, paired off two by two, holding hands and looking deeply into each other's eyes.

Jean knew it was corny as hell, but it made her think of when she and Scott were teenagers.

He was young and strong and horny as a mountain goat, in those days, when he looked at her body with worshipful awe, and never let a day go by without making love to her.

_Don't get too excited, Jean. _

_It's not fair to Logan. _

_He can smell you, you know._

_Oh, that's done it._

Jean looked over at him; he was looking out the window.

She took a tiny peek into his thoughts.

_….there she goes thinkin' about fuckin' again Jesus I wish she wouldn't think about fuckin' so much now settle down old hoss think about somethin' else…_

And when they stopped, there _she _was, in one of her Little Miss Hippie Chick floaty flowery mini-dresses, with her black leather jacket with the Hell's Angels colors on over it, sitting under a big leafy tree and she waved at him, all long blonde hair and big smiles.

Jean stood in front of the steps of the mansion, and watched Femme Fatale run up to Logan and give him a big hug and a kiss.

_What reason do I have to hate Mel Reinhardt? She came here with nothing, she's worked hard and she's made something of herself._

_My God, am I jealous?_

Scott knew she was coming home, today, where the hell was he?

Jean was about to go into the school when Logan came back over to the car to collect his beer bottles.

Sometimes, it was the little things that hurt the most.

**Faculty Dining Room, X-Mansion**

**II: Jean**

If she was going to tell anyone about her problems, it had to be someone she knew she could trust, someone who wasn't close to the situation.

Someone who might know how to charge a man's batteries when they ran down.

Someone like Napalm.

Which was a bit of a joke, considering Napalm was one of the least feminine women Jean ever met; she didn't even own a dress or a skirt and she wore men's military issue underwear.

Nonetheless, she knew her way around a mattress; if there was anybody who could give Jean tips on how to get down and dirty and blast for what was left of Scott's mojo, it was Napalm.

Besides, her very funny and yet very dirty stories in the faculty lounge at lunchtime were always entertaining.

Lately, Napalm's funny dirty stories were the closest thing she had to a sex life.

"You're not gonna believe this one."

"What did you do now? Give your partner a blow job on home plate at Yankee Stadium during the 7th Inning Stretch?"

"Close. Did I ever tell you about Tony's Avengers Round Table fantasy?"

The first time Liv had told Jean about Iron's Man's fantasy of having wild raunchy porno movie sex with a woman as cheerfully depraved as himself on the table where the Avengers gathered for their meetings in the super-secure room in the sub-basement of the Avengers Mansion, she laughed until her sides hurt.

"Oh Christ, Napalm! You didn't! That's not why they gave you a priority-one security clearance! How could you! How could you put your naked ass on the table where Captain America and Thor rest their shield and hammer!" Jean exclaimed.

"Relax, Jean. We washed the table, later."

"I can't believe you. You are such a degenerate."

"Hey, it wasn't my idea. I'll tellya what, I never thought the sunnuvabitch would actually do it. He's been talkin' about it since 1971, after all. But, I get this fuckin' phone call, right and it's Tony and he's all serious. I have to come to the Avengers Mansion and I need my security card and the crazy bastard actually has me worried. Worried until he seals off the doors and gets this cushion out from under his chair where he sits at meetings an' puts it over the big brass "A" in the middle of the table, an' tells me he wouldn't want me to end up with a big scarlet letter on my ass."

"Un-fucking-believable."

"That's what I thought. And Tony's gettin' naked an' I says, to him, yunno, fuck, Tony, have some decorum, man. I mean this is the Avengers Round table. I mean I wouldn't sneak into the Hall of Justice with Eddie and sit in Clark's chair at the head of the table and have him go down on me, yunno? I mean, have some fuckin' respect, right? But, hell, I'm not an Avenger and Tony is Iron Man, so I mean, if he wants to get pussy all over his sanctum sanctorum then, who am I to puncture his dreams? Boy, I'll tellya, he was pretty fuckin' hot about it, too. I mean, generally, you gotta wear knee pads and a helmet to get it on with Tony, but Jesus Christ! I mean I hadda go home and look up some of this shit in my copy of the Kama Sutra we hadda get for this one class in college. You remember that class? I mean I've tried some of that shit before, but I had no idea I could twist my limbs up like that. I gotta say, though, it's a good thing that room is soundproofed, because I was makin' a whole lotta noise. And you coulda written the script for about ten porno movies. If they gave medals for talkin' dirty, Tony would be the Gold Medal World fuckin' Olympic Champion. I mean, that man doesn't even have to touch you, he can talk you into poppin' your hood. You wanna hear the best part?"

"Was that a rhetorical question?"

"I want to hear the best part! That Tony Stark is one dead sexy motherfucker!"

"Ororo!"

Storm was sitting at the next table.

"What? Show me one woman in the world who isn't a lesbian or dead who wouldn't be interested?"

She moved over and the three women leaned over and Liv lowered her voice.

"So me an Tony, we already went at it a coupla times, and then Tony gets up on the cushion, yunno, sitting back with his ass on his heels and his knees open, and, man, is that a sight. And I can't believe it, he's hard again, because he just blew a coupla loads all at once over me and the table like fifteen minutes ago. He's all sweatin' an' pantin', an he's got this crazy fuckin' look in his eye, an' his chest is heavin' and he's breathin' real heavy, an I just got right in there and stretched myself out in front of him and I started, yunno, givin' him head. And he's goin nuts. I mean he's got one hand on my head and I guess I don't hafts tellya where he's got the other hand, and I'm goin' nuts, too, I mean, this is fuckin' shit hot, I mean, I can't believe I ate the whole thing, yunno? And I can tell he's gettin' close, real close, and me, I'm goin' off like a Roman Candle for like, the millionth time, and Tony's whole body just seizes up like he got an electric shock, and just as I pop his cork, he throws his arms open and at the top of his lungs, he yells 'I _AM_ IRON MAN!' No bullshit, man. I'm serious."

Jean was absolutely speechless.

Ororo and Liv laughed like hyenas.

"Napalm, you oughtta write this shit down and publish it. You'd make a mint."

"I know."

Storm went back to her table and Jean and Napalm ate in silence for awhile, then Jean gently broached the subject.

"Napalm, do you do these things with other guys because you're partner's getting to that age where he's slowing down?"

"Who, Eddie? Fuck no! Don't get the wrong idea about Eddie. There's no flies on him. Me an' Eddie have a, wuddycallit, an open ended wuddyacallit because neither of us has the temperament for monogamy. Eddie? Slow down? Don't make me laugh. I mean I see Logan every Wednesday, but Eddie could wear out a hotel for nymphos. Tony likes to say he's the God of Fuck, but Eddie is. He really goddamn is. I mean, the first minute I laid eyes on that big, mean, two-tone sunnuvabitch of a bad motherfucker, I looked at him and I though, shit, that's it baby. I gotta have that. Even if I we both gotta die for it. And I was right, too. Now, me, I always liked tough guys, outlaw loners, guys older than me, dirty old men an' horny old goats an' God save Eddie, he's all of the above. I mean I can't sit here and tellya too many stories about Eddie, I'd melt off the chair. And so would you. Lemme tell you something, Jean, you lie down with Eddie Blake, you wake up in the morning, smiling. And you keep smilin' all day. You got an itch, you want it scratched and scratched good, Eddie your man. Best I ever had, and you know I've had the best at what he does. Why?"

"Well, I figured, he's about fifty and…oh, never mind."

"You mean Cyke's running out of gas, already? What is he, thirty?"

"Well, Scott was never the horniest man in the world. And he has so many responsibilities and you can only expect so much from a man."

"What? Bullshit! Unbelievable fuckin' bullshit! If he's gonna put the ball and chain on you and make you forsake all others, then balling you is one of his fuckin' responsibilities! If you live with a man and he doesn't fuck you, you might as well move in with a woman. She'll leave the seat down, and you can borrow tampons from her when you need them, and you can go out and get laid and laugh with her about it, later."

Jean didn't say anything.

"Well, maybe he's just lost interest. He's a real after church on Sunday do it in the dark with his shorts on kinda guy, huh?" Napalm suggested.

"Is there something wrong with that?"

"Yeah. He's so boring, he's probably bored with himself." Liv opined.

"So, do you think there's something I can do about that?"

Napalm gave her a funny look, and then she realised that she was being asked for advice.

She chuckled.

"Are you as straitlaced as he is?"

"No. I mean, I wouldn't screw on the Avengers meeting table, but it would be great if Scott could be like he was in the old days. I mean, he's really turned into an old puritan. He leaves the lights off. He keeps his shorts on. Forget head, giving it or getting it. I mean he was never Tony Stark, but we used to make love almost every day, and he used to like it. So did I. And just when I thought it couldn't get worse, it did. He hasn't touched me for months."

"Well, ya gotta take charge. Loosen him up a little. Ya can't be afraid to make the first move. Put the light on. Rip his shorts off an say dirty things in his ears. An if you just dive under the covers an start givin' him a blowjob, he ain't gonna tell you to stop. Play dirty. Just climb on his cock in the morning when he's still asleep an' go ta town. He won't push you off, either. Ya tried sexy underwear, and all that shit?"

"Yes. But, honestly, Naplam, I don't know if I can be that…aggressive."

"Aggressive? Aggressive! Shit, when Eddie and I first started workin' together, he wasn't too sure if ballin' me on a regular basis was the best of ideas, an' after he picked some stupid fight with me, I got tired of his bullshit an' I sat on his cock and held a gun to his head. He explained to me that ya gotta ask nice, but he got the message. And we lived happily ever after, yunno? Sometimes ya gotta make the first move. And ask nice afterwards."

Jean only wished it was that easy.

It wasn't as if she hadn't tried.

**Xavier Institute, Quarters of Scott Summers and Jean Grey**

A few nights passed with Jean pondering Liv's advice, but she just couldn't bring herself to be insistent.

For one thing, if Scott rejected her, it would be awful, so awaful she might really lose her temper, and it wasn't good for a telepath with Jean's powers to lost her temper, completely.

"Scott? Don't fall asleep, yet. We have to talk."

Jean felt his whole body stiffen beside her.

All except the part she was hoping to get stiff on him.

"Please, Jean. I'm so tired."

"That's just it, Scott. You're always so tired. And don't tell me all that stuff's for teenagers. Is it me? Is it you? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm just working too hard. Maybe at the end of the month, we'll go away together. See if we can reconnect. There's just been too much going on lately. I can't think about romance right now. You should be able to understand that?"

Jean usually didn't speak before she thought, but this time, she was mad at him giving her the brush off.

"I'm not talking about romance. I'm talking about sex. You don't have to think about sex, you just do it. Except we don't. Ever. At all. You don't even kiss me, anymore."

"Jean, please! It's not important! I'm the battle leader of the X-Men, and someday, I'll be in charge of this Institute! It's a dangerous world out there, for mutants and normal humans, alike. And it keeps getting crazier and more dangerous every day. I'm a man now, with a man's responsibilities. How am I supposed to think about something like…like that with everything else on my plate? You expect too much of me."

Now she was really mad.

"I don't know, Scott. But if Iron Man can lay cock to every girl between here and eternity and Wolverine finds time in his busy schedule of wandering the world trying to figure out who he is, being an X-Man and trying to keep the Hulk in line to entertain the Harlequin once a week and Femme Fatale most of the other days and the Comedian can see to every groupie in New York with his picture on the wall and put Napalm to bed every night with s smile on her face she's still wearing in the morning, you should be able to fit me into your busy schedule of guilt and recriminations, for a quick fuck, somewhere!" Jean snapped.

Scott turned on the light.

"That's not fair, Jean!"

"No? Well, it's not fair that you haven't touched me in a month, at least! I've been asked to Avengers meetings. Maybe I should stay late in a short skirt and bend over the table and try to get a mercy screw from Tony Stark! I might as well be your sister, Scott! I tried shorty nighties and naughty underwear, and now I don't wear anything to bed at all, and for all the interest you have in me, you might as well be sharing a bed with Kurt or Henry. Can't you see, I love you, Scott? I want you. Even looking at you now, with your chest bare and the covers around your waist, it makes me want to make love to you. Don't you feel anything for me, anymore?"

She went to touch him and he pulled away.

"I do. Really. I love you, Jean, I'm just not…I can't. I just can't. I've got too much on my mind, too many responsibilities. I'm just worn out. Jean, honey, I promise. At the end of the month, we'll go on a trip together. Just you and me. I'll be able to relax and…you understand, don't you?"

"Of course I do, Scott. I love you, too. But if you're so overworked and worn out, let me help you. If you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders, you can always shift some of it onto me. "

"That's alright, Jean. I'm alright."

He kissed her very briefly, shut out the light, turned over on his side and moved as far away from her as he could.

He was shutting her out completely.

Again.

As usual.

Jean waited until he was asleep, and then she got up and left the bedroom.

She wasn't sleepy.

At all.


	2. Dreaming From the Waist

**Chapter 2: Dreaming From the Waist**

**Xavier Institute, 1974**

**I: Logan**

Wolverine was sitting in his office with his feet up on his desk, brushing up on his Lord Byron when his nose began to tingle and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

He smelled that expensive Pantene shampoo she used, and Ivory soap, and that drugstore cologne that had the same name as the professor, and under it all, her smell, the sweet, sweet smell of Jeannie.

_I dream of Jeannie with the dark red hair._

_Worse, I think Jeannie dreams of me._

Logan looked up from his desk to watch her go past the door.

She'd been dressing differently that usual, lately.

No more tailored slacks and knee-length corduroy skirts with boots and stockings and Oxford shirts and sweater vests and blazers when she was teaching, and no more tee shirts and Levis after hours.

Gone were the tasteful leather and cloth coats, that little flash of slip when she walked by.

Logan had always been grateful that when Jean wasn't in her costume she dressed in what the TV commercials called a tasteful, classic style. Even though, as a man who had come of age in the Victorian era, the sight of her bare calves covered only in sheer nylons and a hint of slip under a knee length skirt still made him feel dizzy, at least she didn't run around in hip-huggers and miniskirts and midriff-baring tops.

At least, she hadn't.

She was wearing miniskirts now, tight mini-skirts and thigh-high stockings with silky, lacy, ruffly garters, low cut blouses, high-heeled shoes and stacked-heel platform shoes and boots.

Hip-hugger jeans, tight, with wide belts, little hippie shirts, halter tops, tight bolero jackets.

Gym shorts and tank tops in the kitchen after class, bending over to look in the bottom cabinets.

Miles and miles of round, white, creamy thigh, a dizzying expanse of torso and slightly rounded belly, the maddening curve of her waist and flare of her hips and God help him, God save him, that faint, fine, trail of red down just under her achingly perfect cute little outie.

Oh, the agony!

Oh, the ecstasy!

Oh the funny way I walk all day because of my blue and aching balls!

If it wasn't for Mel, and for Wednesdays with Napalm, he knew he would be dead.

He was too old for this shit, his heart couldn't take it.

Napalm seemed to think that Jean was trying to light a fire under Cyke, that was the reason for her changed ways.

Mel thought that Jean was going crazy from the heat, and she was putting it out there for somebody, anybody to notice her, so that Cyke would get pissed off enough to get his mojo working.

Neither of them were jealous.

Napalm thought it was funny and Mel sympathised; she knew how Jean felt, after all, before she met Logan she couldn't get within six feet of a man for two years without driving him to insanity, or death.

Logan rather felt like getting within six feet of Jeannie, lately, was going to kill him or drive him nuts.

He hadn't been sure he wanted to stay when he first came to the X-Mansion.

What the hell did he have in common with a bunch of damn idealistic kids, and as beautiful as Charlie's dream was, that's what it was.

A dream.

But, they were offering him a couple of rooms of his own, a home, three squares a day, and regular work at something he didn't have to be ashamed of.

It was a better deal than he would have got sharing an ancient shack with his crabby old hermit of a father up north in Howlett, until he could work enough hours logging to build a shack of his own.

And it was his last, best chance to do something with his powers other than return to being a drunken lumberjack, living in a shack with no heat, no plumbing, and no electricity.

Burying his beer and his food in the snow, having to walk outside to the outhouse to take a shit on a frosty winter morning.

Still, after a few months at the X-Mansion, spending his time amongst essentially good and decent kids made him uneasy enough to get nostalgic about a cabin in the snow, or even a cave.

Then, Jeannie came back from college.

It was the thunderbolt, love at first sniff, let alone first sight. He stayed at the X-Mansion, jockeying with Cyke, her ex, for Jean Grey's love, and in the process, he came to know and befriend her, and a lot of the other members of the team.

By the time Jeannie decided to return to Scott, Logan had begun to think of the X-Mansion as his home, of his teammates as his family, and he was beginning to feel protective of the students, especially Kitty Pryde and Jubilee.

As for Jeannie's love, he knew she loved him, as a friend, and he knew that somewhere in her, she loved him as a woman, but in the end, his love was something that she felt she couldn't bear up under the weight of.

It was okay, sometimes it hurt worse than others, and Mel and Napalm had eased his pain, but he had become a reasonably contented, even a happy man.

But now Jeannie had to go and upset the apple cart.

She wasn't just wearing these semi-sleazy outfits to get Cyke's mojo working; they were for his benefit, too.

She may not have returned the love he felt for her, but, lately, her lust for him was just as strong as his lust for her.

If not stronger.

Almost every time she was in his presence she got horny, desperately horny, consumed even, by plain old hog lust.

The sweet, sweet smell of it filled Logan's mind as well as his nostrils, it made him feel drunk and stupid and painfully horny, himself.

He was a man of great dignity and honour, and that was a good thing, because, if he hadn't been he thought he might have got down on his knees and begged her, just once, to let him have just a little taste.

The very thought made him growl, deep in his chest.

_Jesus, I feel like I got a tree growin' outa my crotch, and she ain't even come past the door, yet. _

He realised he wasn't breathing as Jean walked by, slowly, in a brown corduroy miniskirt and a low-cut ruffly white blouse, wearing stacked heel platform knee-high boots.

No stockings.

Thighs, thighs, thighs!

Just passing his office, thinking about him, wafted the sweet scent of her to him.

He held onto his desk, gritted his teeth, swallowed his snarl.

What the hell was Cyke's problem?

Was he blind?

Stupid?

Crazy?

"Logan! Just what the hell are you doing? You little creep! Did you just stop what you were doing so you could ogle me as I passed by?"

Yeah, it was time to make deals with God.

_Dear God, I know I ain't your favourite person, but please don't let her come in here. I'll be a good boy, I promise, even if they're gonna cut off my head I won't claw anybody for a month, I'll go to confession and scare the hell out of a priest, anything, just don't let her come in here._

God, however, as Logan well knew, did not make deals.

What was it in that one Doors song, one of Naplam's favourites, how did it go?

Oh yeah.

Look, she's coming in here.

I can't live through each slow century of her moving.

Good old Jimbo, he was partial to redheads, he knew what he was talking about.

Jean was mad, her eyes were flashing, but he didn't smell anger on her.

Just the opposite.

_Play it cool, Logan. Do not toss her over your shoulder, lock the door, slice her clothes off and bend her over the desk._

_Even though if you did, she wouldn't make any attempt to stop you._

"Just enjoyin' the scenery, Red."

_Try to be casual._

_Do not move away from the desk._

Logan put his hands under his desk and held onto it like it was a life preserver.

"I am not goddamn scenery! Look, Napalm might think you're a good time and Mel Reinhardt doesn't have any other choice, and I know some of our young female students think Mr. Logan is just the most shit-hot bad man they ever saw, but your gutter charm doesn't work on me! If you want to continue this friendship, you had better continue to treat me with dignity and respect! Are we clear?"

"Yeah. Sure. All I did was look."

"It wasn't the look. It was what you were thinking."

"Hell, darlin', I'm just a man, ain't I? I can't help thinkin' what I was thinkin'."

He smiled.

She frowned.

She just stood there for a few moments and glared at him.

A few moments.

A few centuries of torture and agony.

"You can try!"

Jean slammed his door shut and continued on her way past his.

Logan let out his breath in a rush, detached his claws from under the desk; they had slipped out, at some point, and put his head down on his desk for awhile.

Didn't she know what kind of effect she had on him? She was a telepath, one of the most powerful telepaths in the world, she had to know—

Wait.

She had to know.

She tryin' me.

Baitin' me.

She wanted me to lose it, completely, lock the door and slice off her clothes and bend her over the desk and give it to her every which way.

Wolverine broke out in a cold sweat.

Oh no.

No, no, no, no, no!

Jeannie was Cyke's girl. Cyke was the team leader. And maybe they weren't the best of buddyroos, but Scott was his friend.

If he took the bait, it would be disrespectful to Scott, and to Charlie for the kindness he'd showed Logan, and the faith he had in him, and it would be a great black mark on him, a dishonour, the lowest kind of animal behaviour he could possibly stoop to.

Panic.

Time to panic.

"It's real simple, hoss. No matter what she does, you ain't gonna touch her. At all. Ever. Not unless she breaks it off with Cyke, or he decides it's okay for her to run around with other men." Logan told himself.

He thought about it, and then put his head back down on the table.

Maybe it was about time he took Mel for that trip north they had been talking about.

Before the shit hits the fan.

**II: Yukon Mel**

Melanie "Yukon Mel" Reinhardt, AKA Femme Fatale was in her last year as a student at the Xavier Institute in 1974, but, at 24, she was much older than anyone else in her graduating class.

Four years earlier, she arrived at the school having hitch-hiked from San Francisco, homeless, broke and desperate, with nowhere else to turn.

Her cold and remote mother had divorced her beloved father when she was eleven, and driven him out of their lives because he was a mutant, and when she and Mel's new and much-hated stepfather discovered when Mel was 13 that she was a mutant, too, they kicked her to the curb.

Mel's father, a giant of a man, seven feet tall and able to lift a pickup truck over his head with ease, died by his own hand, broken and alone and far from home, but his daughter refused to share his fate.

She had grown up in the West Coast School of Hard Hippie, sometimes a hippie gypsy, sometimes a Earth Mother of a mountain man, sometimes a West Coast sharpie on the grift, sometimes riding on a wartime BSA motorcycle her mutant father had built just for her with her brothers as one of two female full members of the Hell's Angels Frisco Chapter.

It was a helluva life, and she liked it, but Mel had a helluva curse to go with it.

She lived from hand to mouth, sometimes by the generosity of the times, sometimes doing odd jobs, but always by her wits. She was no stranger to the grift, in the parlance of the times she had seen the elephant. Melanie thought of herself as a true flower child, a free spirit, a genuine North American Outlaw, but she wasn't a sucker, a pushover, or a soft touch. She wasn't some naïve flower waif in for the summer from some cushy Midwestern North American home; the road was Melanie's home and she went where it took her, asking no questions and looking no further than the next stop along the way.

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

If Mel's only mutant power had been super-strength, she would have been alright, but she also inherited the power that every woman in her father's family had, pretty much since the trees of the Black Forest from which they had sprung were saplings.

Melanie was almost completely irresistible to men. She wasn't too tall, but she was a big, busty German girl, a blonde and blue-eyed Dresden doll in tye dye and flared Levis and leathers with chains on but that wasn't how she could get them to do anything she wanted.

Such was her mutation.

Mel was a Nymph, and had she any member of her family, or any other adult woman with the same mutation, or maybe even her father, who had watched his mother teach his sisters, to train her in the use of her powers from their first onset, there wouldn't have been a problem.

But Mel came to her maturity alone and on the road, having lost her father before he could even explain to her what was going to happen to her at puberty.

She became afraid to get close to any man, because if she didn't want their company for long, the effects were very bad for the men in question.

A man she met at a concert, once, killed himself a week later, after she failed to call him back again.

And when she found herself actually attracted to a man, even as a friend, her feelings amplified her powers to the point where she could literally knock a man out, and in some cases had literally driven them mad with desire, irretrievably insane, forever.

Mel found it hard, even with her strength to bear up under the curse, and she became a junkie.

It didn't dull her powers, but it made her feel a lot better and look a lot worse, so it was easier to avoid men.

As she got older and her powers strengthened, she eventually got to the point where she was afraid to be in any place where she was within six feet of any man.

It didn't matter that she had devolved into a hollow-eyed, greasy junkie, all stringy hair and gristly muscle and track marks and bloody leathers, all she had to do was growl and say "Get the fuck outa my way" to a guy she brushed past in a store, and he was hooked like a crook, and liable to face complete suicidal madness by the time she was leaving with her usual chicken soup and chocolate cookies, the only food she could bring herself to eat.

It got that bad.

She had sold her bike for one last fix and tried to OD, but she was too strong to die that way.

So, Mel ended up going cold turkey at a women's collective in Big Sur, from where she made the cross-country journey in the VW camper she'd lived in since 1963, a long journey across the highways and byways of America, on the bum and with her thumb, any which way she could, until she arrived at the Xavier Institute with everything she owned in an army surplus knapsack, the clothes on her back, and two dollars, having had her last meal about a day ago.

Could Professor Xavier help her?

Of course he could.

She had been glad to have a home again, a room of her own and a roof over her head and three squares a day in a place where she was with her own kind.

But, still, Mel was a pretty normal girl, she liked men, for friends and otherwise, and when she started to learn to control her powers, it was the greatest thing that ever happened to her.

It meant so much to just to be able to talk to a man, again, even if he was just some kid.

It was great to be able to take the train to New York City, alone, or with some of her new friends, cats and chicks alike and go places.

Go see bands, go to movies, go have a drink, even just go sit in the park.

Sure, if she wanted to go to a bar she had to go by herself, because they had raised the drinking age in New York to 19, and she wasn't all that close to any of the professors, but Mel didn't mind that too much; she could take care of herself, and it was nice to be able to go to a bar and have a drink with a grown man and talk to him, even if that was all she could do.

She was looking forward to being able to progress.

It had been a long time.

But, amidst all these good vibrations, there was sort of a worm in Mel's apple, and the more time she spent at the Xavier Institute, the more she realised it was a problem.

A big problem.

After a year and a half of celibacy, and a semester at the Institute, Mel was pretty sure that she had fallen in lust.

Worse, it was with a man who was her friend, like one of her brothers, the last man in the world she would want to hurt.

But there it was, anyway, screaming, intemperate, burn up the world and tear down the stars lust.

She always felt a little funny around Mr. Logan, right from the first time she met him and he jokingly told her she looked a lot like the girl on the bottle of his favourite German beer.

True, he wasn't the tallest cat in the world, when she looked at him they were eyeball to eyeball, but he was a man, spelled M-A-N and no two ways about it.

For one thing, he was a grown man, not some 17-year old kid who wouldn't know what to do with her even if he did have her.

Because of her powers, Mel never had much to do with men unless they were the Big Bad Wolf type. They seemed to be able to tolerate them a little better. Take Gypsy, her old man who was the president of the Frisco chapter.

He looked like something out of a Viking movie.

He was about six foot three, and he had lost an eye and a leg in the Pacific. He didn't wear a patch, either, and he had long hair a darker color blond than hers, some of which he wore in braids that had trinkets and charms hanging from them, and a long red beard and moustache. He was heavily scarred and heavily tattooed, and wore jump boots and fatigue pants with his jacket and colors.

Gypsy was a good guy with a big, booming laugh and a seemingly endless capacity for beer until you fucked with him, and then he would make you the sorriest motherfucker on God's Green Earth.

She had loved Gypsy since she was 15, and she supposed she would love him on the day she died and on into eternity, but her love would kill him, it almost had, and that was the end of it.

They still spoke, sometimes, and she wrote, sometimes, but, they did say it was better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all, and it may have been true.

Still Gypsy had left a hole in her heart that no amount of just talking to mutant boys and college dudes and other hippie cats could fill.

But, Mr. Logan was made from the same mould as Gypsy, and then some.

He was some kind of man. Broad shoulders. Barrel chest. Legs like tree trunks. Muscles on his muscles and so very hairy. Wild, thick black hair and blue eyes.

And he was bad, he was bad like Jesse James, you could tell.

The younger girls, they were always Mr. Summers this and Mr. Summers that, and Cyke wasn't too hard on the eyes, but for one thing he was taken, and for another he was a nice guy, but he was truly Mr. Plastic Fantastic Square John Dry White Toast.

And they were teenagers, who didn't know the kind of bone deep hunger for a man, a real man, that grew up inside you, and the terrible aching loneliness when you couldn't so much as talk to a guy for years.

Logan was like the guys she grew up around in BC, right down to the lumberjack shirts and steel-toed work boots. One of those Great White North tough guys who wasn't born so much as he grew out of the snow, whole and breathing with a chainsaw in his truck and a checked flannel shirt on and a beer in his hand.

Except, unlike most of those dudes, he was pretty cool.

A freak amongst freaks.

An outcast amongst outcast.

She could smell those tall Scotch pines on his logger shirts; he looked like home and he smelled like a real good time, and he even rode, too.

They'd had a few beers together in the kitchen at night, and she had a drink or two with him at the local dive, it turned out that she was from the same small town outside of Vancouver that he was, a little logging town called Howlett, which Mr. Logan said was named after the man that was supposed to be his father.

He knew her father, Erich "Fritzy" Reinhardt, who used to be the boss of the logging camp near Howlett, and she knew his real father, Thomas "Old Black Tom" Logan, a sometime logger and full-time mountain man.

Their fathers had been friends.

That was too close for comfort for Mel. She knew the man couldn't be killed but he felt pain just like any other human being, and she didn't want to hurt him, so she was straight with him that if he came any closer to her than six feet that her powers could kill a man and might hurt him and she wasn't under complete control of them.

He never asked her how come it was she could get closer than six feet to other guys, he probably had it figured out, but six feet away was close enough to become friends with somebody, and it wasn't long before Mr. Logan, combat instructor, the feared Wolverine, was just her good friend Logan.

She hadn't had a friend like him since she had to leave her brothers behind; and she had never met a man who could understand the life she'd led and the kind of freedom she needed so well. Sure, they traded tall tales of a life on the road with the only other person from the Institute that liked the Thruway Tavern, but things could get heavy between them, especially on a long, cold night that reminded them both of the home they'd been driven from long ago.

Maybe they'd go back someday, she said.

Maybe to stay for awhile, he said.

They knew it was a pipedream, that it was miles and years between them and their youths in the Canadian Rockies, but it was a good dream to have, when you were drunk and you were lonely, it was the kind of dream that might come true, if only for a little while.

Mel had the market cornered on lonely, and the worst thing about it was that Logan eased her loneliness and made it worse.

She had a friend again, a brother, but he might as well have been one of the sisters she lived with.

Nights were the worst.

Paradise was becoming Hell.

Mel didn't want to get in the wind, but, alone in her room, loneliness and misery assaulted her, and she lay in her bed, night after night, naked and tossing and turning in bad dreams and cold sweats and sleepless nights where she smoked and drank alone and tried to take care of it, herself, but that only made it worse.

The night she found out that Logan had got her bike back for her she let it slip to him that she wasn't like Rogue; touching her wouldn't immediately physically hurt him; she was more like human heroin.

The touch of her uncontrolled powers would suck every bit of pain and hurt out of him, body and soul, make him feel like he was the king of the world, and make him so dependant on her that when she got up to go to the can from his bed she'd come back to find him trying to saw his own head off with his claws.

But Logan laughed that off; he told her that he wasn't an ordinary man, that an H-bomb hadn't killed him, that whatever she had, he could take it.

Maybe he even needed it.

They needed each other, that was for sure, and Mel knew after spending one raunchy, sweaty night in Logan's bed that even if he wasn't hooked on her she was hooked on him; her own personal rough and ready hard-bitten outlaw Superman, the only man who could touch her without dying.

The only man to whom her powers were a blessing rather than a curse.

But he was hooked on her, as hooked as she was, and as he first year at the Institute wound to a close, they were out of control.

They did it all over the school. Even outside. Mel considered it a miracle she and Logan never got caught in the act.

It got so that every free moment they had they were all over each other. He had her in the kitchen at night on every conceivable surface, bent over his desk, on the floor in the gym, outside in the grass, in the danger room, on the couch in the TV room, on the floor in the TV room, they broke his bed, they broke her bed.

He'd come to her room without knocking, without asking, if the door was locked he'd kick it in grab her, throw her on the bed or put her on the closest possible surface and fuck her, and she never even though about stopping him, once.

And Mel, she'd crawl under his desk while he was working in his office; she waited for him when he got back from missions and peeled his uniform off him and licked the sweat off his hairy chest; she was on her knees or on her back before he could even get his boots off.

It was nothing but riding all up and down the highways and by-ways of New York, and fucking and sucking and wanking and spanking morning, noon, and night for the rest of the school year.

They quickly got to the point where if she would have asked Logan to go to Rio and get her a coconut, he would have done it, and if he asked her to ski down Mount Everest naked with a carnation up her nose, she would have gone right to the flower shop and then to the airport.

Mel didn't know what she was doing, and she knew for a fact Logan didn't know what he was doing, anymore, either. He wasn't just cunt-struck, it was her powers, he was hooked on her but she was hooked on him, too. She knew she was riding him into the ground, and there were mornings when she woke up with her jaw clicking and her legs feeling wobbly as Jell-o and her back hurting something fierce, but she couldn't care. If she could lavish her lust on him and her powers and it couldn't hurt him, didn't faze him, and why worry about tomorrow when it's not going to lick itself, today?

They were both drunk a lot of the time, too, and not just a few beers drunk, they were really hitting the bottle hard, night after night after night.

That night was the absolute apex of their mad misbehaviour.

Then there was the nigh they went for a ride in Mr. Summers shiny new truck. They were drunk. Really drunk. Mel had some pot and she discovered that Logan didn't smoke a lot of pot it went right to his head. They were in the truck, drinking and passing the joint back and forth and laughing like idiots and playing the radio really loud and Logan ended up driving all the way to Toronto.

They got a hotel room, and Mel started telling Logan about her grandmother in Vancouver, and how she was the only one in the family she was in touch with and that she hadn't seen her for about seven years and before Mel knew it, they were on the way to Vancouver.

Alone with each other, Mel realised she wasn't doing Logan any favours.

His thing with Jean Grey, it was driving him crazy, and what she was doing wasn't helping. It was like drugs. She was hooked again, and so was Logan.

Mel was hooked on the feeling she got from having this incredible, indestructible guy that her powers didn't seem to hurt at all, and Logan was getting hooked on how said powers they just took all that pain and suffering about Jean Grey and his fractured memories and so on and swept them all away.

They were literally fucking their brains out.

What Mel was doing to both of us was turning their brains into mush.

Then, one terrible night, she got up out of bed in the latest cheap motel with him, bleeding a little from three thin scratches across her back, and said she was going into town to get some beer and smokes.

Logan pinned her to the wall and waved his claws in her face, snarling at her that if she ditched him he would find her, and cut her all up so that no one would ever want her again, but him.

She barely got out of the room in one piece, and as soon as she was outside, she could hear him in there, howling in pain and despair, like a wounded animal.

Mel was horrified.

Her worst fears realised, again, she figured Logan had to go cold turkey. She took the truck and everything and paid the hotel bill and fled, intending to go back north, back home, to the mountains around Howlett, and build herself a cabin, shut herself off from the rest of the world, forever.

If she really, really needed a man, there was always Old Black Tom; if she kept it casual and infrequent she couldn't hurt the old bastard, and if she called him Logan at the wrong moment, well that was his name, wasn't it?

She sent Logan's duffle bag and wallet back to the Institute, thinking he had gone home, with no intention to ever return.

She though she had her shit together with her powers, and that she could make it on her own, but things went bad, fast, again and Mel found herself in deep trouble with another kind of man her powers didn't affect, a complete sociopath she met in a bar who tried to steal Mr. Summers truck and wrecked it and beat her up.

Yukon Mel, however, was a graduate of the School of Hard Hippie and stronger than six punks like this one.

She got the better of him, left him for dead, in fact, and didn't care if he was, he had been asking for it. Coming to her senses, Mel got the truck and headed home to the Institute only to find that Logan was AWOL, somewhere in the wilds of the Great White North.

She spent weeks worrying that she had killed him, that he woke up the next day and she wasn't there and he went off and killed himself, and then they found out he was alright, and that he had hooked up with Liv "Napalm" Napier, the Harlequin.

He was gone all summer, and when Napalm brought him back, she challenged Mel to a fight.

That was bad news. Napalm Napier was the only full member the New York Hell's Angels had ever had, she was the ruthless alcoholic daughter of a supervillain and aside from being a mask in her own right, she had a reputation for ultraviolence and brutality that spread all the way to the West Coat.

Nobody fucked with Napalm without being scarred for life, and if you really fucked her over, your life and the pain she put you through was mercifully short.

Now Yukon Mel was a pretty tough chick, but she wasn't crazy enough to take Napalm on, and decided to approach the matter from the standpoint of them being sisters, greeting Logan and his new feral, deadly friend in her colors when Napalm brought Logan back to the Institute.

Over time, the two of them, sisters, Logan's old lady and his friend by the bonds of a blood oath they swore on each other, became friends.

Both women realised they weren't going anywhere at had Logan's best interests at heart, so they buried the hatchet, and not in each other's heads.

Still, with Logan back at the X-Mansion, things had been difficult, for awhile, at least for Mel.

She managed to drag it out of Logan that he had gone completely nuts trying to kick her, and that the only reason he was still alive was because being hit by a truck didn't kill him, jumping off the roof of the hotel she left him in didn't kill him, clawing his own guts out didn't kill him and he passed out before he could use his claws to saw his head off.

She wanted to throw in the towel, altogether, but he didn't want to.

Mel kept working on her control, and after a torturous fall, by Christmas of 1970, Professor X told her that she had attained the maximum control she could over her powers. It was safe for her to be with Logan, again, but, he regretted to inform her that it was only Logan's healing factor and his degree of mental discipline that would make it safe for him to be her lover, but Mel didn't care if she couldn't have any other men, Logan was good enough for her.

Who the fuck were you going to get to follow Wolverine, anyway?

She didn't mind his Wednesdays with Napalm, either, and she was glad for her when the crazy chick met her match in the Comedian, an old army buddy of Logan's.

As for Jean, Mel accepted Logan's feelings for her with equanimity.

She knew there was room in the old Canucklehead's heart and his life for all three of them.

The only thing that bothered her was the way it could torment him, at times.

She hadn't been mad at Jean, until recently, when, in Mel's opinion, she started purposely tormenting him, parading around in high-class hooker outfits and waving her pussy under his nose, then scolding him when he tried to take a sniff.

Mel came to Logan's office after her classes were over for the day to see if he felt like going to happy hour over at their favourite dive of an eyesore, a wretched hive of scum and villainy back-alley, back-door, roadhouse pool hall juke joint bar with a parking lot loaded up with motorcycles and rusty pickups and muscle cars all full of drunk and lowlifes and bikers and loonies and misfits and outlaws and freaks and trouble where there's always a good rock band playing on Friday and Saturday nights and decent people are scared to go there.

It was called the Thruway Tavern, and it was only a ten minute drive away and Logan was such a fixture there that when he wasn't sitting in his usual place at the bar or in his usual table in the back corner with his back to the wall, nobody else was either.

She was a philosopher at heart, even-tempered by nature, and very slow to anger, but when Mel found Logan slumped over his desk with his head in his hands and a half-drunk bottle of whiskey close at hand, she got mad, and slammed the door on her way in.

"Baby, how can you let that square john chick do this to you? Just make a pass at her, man. If she tells you to get your hands off her, you can write her off as a prick teaser. And if she starts takin' your pants off, give it to her. Screw her right into the wall, show her what a real man's good for, maybe she'll go find herself one. She's just lookin' for somebody to give it to her, anyway. I mean, hell, it's just balling, everybody does it." Mel insisted.

"Jeannie doesn't feel that way about it, darlin'. And I can't do that. She's Cyke's girl."

"Yeah, you go a point there. Nothin' good ever came from messin' around with a brother's old lady. But Jean's askin' for it! An' she should fuckin' know better! I mean, if workin' her ass isn't her thing, she should cover it up and go home. Or she should shake it at somebody who doesn't live here. Jesus, I hate to see you like this, Logan."

"Mel, darlin', I don't want you to feel like you're second best, because you're not, you're my girl, my old lady, an'…"

Mel laughed.

"You think I care who got your engine running as long as I get to ride? It's a nice day. C'mon, lets go get close to nature. Real close. Then we can take a ride the Thruway. Get trashed. Play some pool. Come back here in the middle of the night, get it on in the kitchen, get Cyke to come downstairs and scream at us. Maybe it'll inspire him to do his job so that Jean quits torturin' you. You dig?"

Logan thought about it.

God bless bad girls with good hearts; if it wasn't for them, he'd be a lonely man.

"That sounds like a plan for the night ta me, darlin'. I'm buyin." He decided.

**III: Jean**

Jean sat in her window in her expensive and uncomfortable revealing outfit, looking out over the grounds.

Scott was in bed, dead to the world; he had been working and teaching for three days, straight, without sleeping.

She saw Logan and Mel walking lazily across the lawn to the treeline.

They were both barefoot and he had no shirt on; they were probably going to take a nice walk in the woods and find a pretty green spot to go make love.

That was so romantic.

Then they were probably going to get on their motorcycles and go get ripped at that dive up on the interstate.

Not so romantic, but it might be fun.

Back in the city, Eddie Blake and Napalm were either at his place or hers, sitting on the couch with him in his bathrobe and her in her boxers and undershirt, two beers on the coffee table, looking for something violent to watch on television before he and Napalm went to work.

If they got bored she's reach under his bathrobe for something to do, and after they got done making life Hell for New York's criminal element or sending them straight to it, it was likely to be round two and then off to dreamland.

That was so unromantic, but at this point, Jean would be willing to take what she could get.  
***The end of the month came and went, with no trip for her and Scott, and Jean just quit sleeping, pretty much altogether.

It began to take a toll on her, and that was when she started sleeping in other parts of the X-Mansion, and she realised it wasn't that she couldn't sleep, it was that she couldn't sleep next to Scott.

It became hard to explain to those seeking a midnight snack and some TV whey she was always sleeping on the couch in the TV room, so she took to sleeping on a mat in the gym, with a pillow and a blanket.

Since nobody worked out in the middle of the night, nobody really noticed.

Scott slept like the dead; as long as she got up right before he did in the morning and was there when he woke up, everything was fine.

Except it wasn't.

Jean began to feel like the Invisible Woman, she was Professor Grey, just Professor Grey, X-Man; she might as well have been a robot.

No one looked at her, no one thought about her, no one even remembered she was a woman, at all.

"Ya know somethin', Jean? Ya look like shit."

"I haven't been sleeping much, Liv. Working late. So, tell me, what's on tap for this week's edition of Tales From the Crotch?"

Napalm chuckled.

"Well, ya know how it's been real hot this week, first time it's been hot this year. It's too goddamn early to be this fuckin' hot, an' I'm not used to it yet, so I been sweltering in my costume. I mean, it's not like I can get a summer weight one, and the hint of spandex so's I can move don't make canvas and Kevlar all that lighter, yunno? So, I keep it unzipped about a quarter, and all night, I kept zippin' an' unzippin', fannin' myself, zippin' an' unzippin'. Me an' Eddie are on patrol on the docks, and it's too fuckin hot for anybody to be out makin' trouble."

Storm eased her chair over to their table.

"I think I know where this one is going." She said.

"The crazy fuckin' bastard, it ain't like he ain't seen it all before, ya know? And I'm not lettin' my tits flop out and it's too goddamn hot to wear anything under the boiler suit. So, I'm fannin' myself an' pantin', an' all the sudden, Eddie just throws his cigar butt down on the ground and he says "Fuck this!" and picks me up. Picks me up. I mean he ain't got time for me to walk to the car, he picks me up and carries me a few blocks back to it, and pulls the zip down all the way and sits me on the hood. The goddamn zipper goes all the way down to my hip, but not until I take off my gunbelt. So, we're getting' into this serious clinch on the hood, and I'm pretty sure he woulda given it to me right there, but, you know, with his costume on and my belt and my weapons and all, there was too much hardware between us. So I take off my belt and my guns and my machete and put em on the front seat, an' unzip all the way. This pretty much leaves me open for business. An' Eddie takes off his weapons and his armor and his shirt and puts them on the front seat, and Jesus, its' just like in the comix I read, all he's got on are his leathers and his boots and his goddamn shoulder shields. Now, what they don't tell you in the comix is that he hasta take those off too, which he figures out after he shuts the door and gets in the back seat on top of me and almost breaks my nose on the steel. So, off they go into the front seat, and while he's busy doin' that, I'm busy unzippin' his pants an' lettin' the beast out of its cage, ya know. And Eddie, shit, he's all over me; an' I'm all over him, and my costume's gettin' in the way, so while I'm pushin those skin-tight leathers down off his ass, he's got the zip in the leg so I can take my costume off without takin my boots off unzipped, and one leg outa the boiler suit, and we are good to go."

By this time, Jean realised that everyone in the room was listening, whether or not they were pretending not to be.

"And we're fuckin' rollin all over the back seat of that big black Caddy, I can tell you. The windows are fogged up, the car's rockin' and squeakin and it's a good thing I did the work on the suspension, because lemme tell youse, when we quit rollin' around an' Eddie got on top an hit his stride, man, was he nailin' me like a fuckin' railroad tie. I got my legs up around his shoulders, an' he's found the sweet spot, an' I got my hands on his ass like he's gonna drive us right through the middle of the Earth to fuckin' Australia. I'm howlin' like a fuckin' dog during a full moon, an' Eddie's sayin' all these really dirty but kinda nice things to me, and then BOOM!"

Napalm slammed her fist down on the table.

"WHAM! We both go off, like it was fuckin' synchronised. And there we are, a little bit later, sittin' up in the back seat, sweatin' like pigs, tryna put our clothes back on. An' Eddie turns to me an' laughs, an ya know what he says?"

"What?" Jean asked.

"He says, 'Kid, keep your goddamn costume zipped! It's bad enough you bein' fulla hellfire, without fannin' the goddamn flames.' I thought that was a pretty good pun, an' I laughed pretty hard, an' then we got dressed and drove back to Eddie's place. I was too tired to drive home, an' I got up so late the next morning I was almost late to go teach my class, an' when I was leavin', Eddie was still in bed, snorin' away."

That little story was on Jean's mind during a recent mission with the Avengers to thwart some loathsome and obscene evil that threatened to assail the helpless Earth from some frightening dimension at the dark heart of space and time.

Remembering the effect it had on the Comedian, Jean left her costume a quarter unzipped, sort of going for the whole Hollywood effect, to see it wouldn't work with Scott.

In the thick of battle she forgot all about it, and the thrill of victory was also distracting, but she found herself the object of a horrified look from Scott when she and the others stepped into the X-Jet.

Cap's face turned red and he pretended to cough and looked away, poor Logan looked as if he might actually be having a heart attack, and finally Kurt gently asked her if perhaps she was a little bit cold.

Iron Man was quite debonair about the whole thing.

"As much as I enjoy beautiful things, Jean, I think you should have that zipper replaced. It's very possible you may have defeated the alien, well, let's be polite and say single-handedly."

Jean looked down.

At some point in time, the zipper had slipped all the way down to her belt, her tits had freed themselves from the confines of the suit, and they were just hanging in the breeze.

Her intent was to show a little cleavage, not the whole nine yards.

Jean was completely mortified. She wanted to cover herself with her hands and scream until she couldn't scream anymore, or until someone mercifully knocked her cold, but she just zipped up to her neck in a cool and rational fashion.

"Of course. It must have been damaged in the fight. Oh well, at least no one lost his codpiece." She joked.

Worse, the only effect it had on Scott was to mortify him.

Things were getting desperate.

Later on that same week, she went to the city, to Times Square, and tried to buy a dirty book, or a dirty magazine, or a dirty movie, several times. But she could never bring herself to walk into a place like that.

She could have asked Napalm to pick something up for her, anything to take the edge off of the furious frustration she had begun to seethe with, but she was just too ashamed.

And as she got more and more desperate, it became harder and harder to pretend that just thinking about Logan's horrible, messy room that probably smelled like beer and cigars and old sweat socks where he had dirty clothes and stroke books all over the floor and probably never you changed the sheets drove her wild with lust, let alone thinking about the man.

It also didn't help that she knew that he was probably still willing, at any time and in any place to give her what she wanted any way she wanted it, including a few things that she could never convince Scott to do for years and maybe even a few things he'd never think about doing.

Or that Logan was just this side of a wild animal.

Or that he had four score years of debauchery in which to practise his skills.

Or that his healing ability probably gave him incredible stamina.

He had, of course, once burnt for her with the white-hot intensity of a thousand burning suns, but how long can a man be expected to carry a torch for a woman who shows no interest in him?

But he had a girl on his dance card, didn't he? Two girls, if you counted Wednesdays with Napalm. Three if you counted his lady crime lord in Madripoor. Not to mention the fact that she seriously doubted that if Logan was in one of his usual pool hall dives and between him getting drunk and having fistfights some woman who was reasonably good looking inquired to him as to whether he had ever seen the parking lot, and if so had he ever seen the parking lot with her, he would tell her he wasn't interested.

He wouldn't have to be free of responsibility, or in the goddamn mood; he probably wouldn't even have to be in a prone position.

Just let down the tailgate on his old green truck, put the girl up on it unzip his jeans and give it to her.

He seemed like the kind of man capable of that kind of act of naked lust.

Jean was not a bad girl, she had never in her life done something that dirty.

Maybe she could disguise herself, use her telepathic powers so he wouldn't know it was her.

She could almost smell the cheap whiskey on his labouring breaths, and feel the cold metal of the tailgate on her bare thighs, tempered by the heat of his hands, his large, strong, hot hands, finding her thighs bare above her garters.

The growl in his throat as he pushed, no, tore, that was it, tore her panties aside.

And she'd unbutton just a few buttons on his shirt, and rub his hairy, manly, muscular chest as his mouth hungrily sought hers, a real kiss, a deep kiss, and his hand, his rough, dirty hand, sliding up her thigh, coming ever closer to—

Oh no.

No, no, no, no no!

Am I having…fantasies…about _Logan_?!

Good Christ in Heaven, yes I am.

It was time for Jean to face the music, to quit telling herself he wasn't her type, that what he could give her wasn't what she was looking for, that she wasn't interested in him, because that was all damn dirty lies.

She broke up with Scott before she went to NYU; he hadn't wanted her to leave him and go to college, and she had a boyfriend at school, but when she returned to the Institute, she knew she still loved Scott and he still loved her and they got back together.

Logan had been there then.

It was when he first joined the X-Men, and he was mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

And not her type at all.

That was Napalm's type.

Like goes with like.

The way Logan burned for her then, the lust in his eyes, she was little more than a goddamn kid, it had frightened her.

She had always been a little bit attracted to him, right from the start, but he frightened her.

Not now.

Not anymore.

She was frightened, alright, frightened of herself, frightened of ruining her life, and Scott's, and even Logan's, because she was going crazy from the heat.

They were friends now, though, she and Logan, good friends, old friends.

If she kept throwing herself at him, even though Logan was a man of honor, he was still a man, and he wouldn't be able to restrain himself.

That would be disaster.

Jean realised that her first instinct had been the right one.

She had to find somebody else to do it to her.

Anybody, as long as he was a man, a real goddamn man.

And, whereas there was no such thing as a Superhero Dating Service, in the mask community, there was no shortage of real goddamn men.

Time to go and find one.

Soon.


	3. Bad Like Jesse James

**Chapter Three: Bad Like Jesse James**

**Xavier Institute, 1974, a few weeks later**

**I: Jean**

Jean Grey was a very cool and methodical woman, and she had decided upon setting out to find a lover in a cool and methodical way.

First, she decided to defer to the judgement of a practised lecher when it came to picking the right man for the job.

From the time she was 13, Napalm set out to explore the available suspects, from heavily tattooed former dogfaces, rough and ready lone wolves who went right from the belly of a tank or a bomber to the back of a motorcycle on down the line to willowy young hippies with the faces of choirboys on a Sunday morning.

She was semi-retired from the dating pool, and had decided on Eddie Blake, Logan and Tony Stark to rest on her laurels with.

Logan was off limits, but that left Jean with two prospects to work with.

The second step was to get a better idea of what she could expect.

Liv's funny, dirty stories were not all that informative, so Jean went to an anonymous bookshop and picked up a copy of _It's OK, I'm With the Team_, the autobiography of Shirley Trelawney, a famous mask groupie.

She turned first to the chapter on the Comedian, skipped past the unimportant parts, and got right to the dirty bits.

_…he knew what I was, and, unlike some of his fellow masks, it didn't seem to bother him._

_ I was nervous; you can't be a human being and not get nervous around this man. He has the air about him of a wild animal that can't be tamed, the baddest of all imaginable bad boys._

_ And here he was, in my apartment, in my bedroom, taking off his costume, as I watched, raptly._

_ I had thought that some of his bulk was due to the armor on his chest plate or the stars and stripes steel shields he wore on his shoulders, but I was wrong._

_ The man was built like a brick wall. He had a deep chest, and broad shoulders and he was all muscle._

_ Sweat glistened on his hairy chest as he casually took off his shirt, and when he sat on the bed to take off his boots, I couldn't take it any longer._

_ I threw myself on the floor in front of him and unzipped the fly of his skin-tight leather pants._

_ Some masks, whose names I will not mention, wear a falsie in their codpieces or at the front of their tights, to give the illusion of gigantism._

_ Not the Comedian._

_ Eventually, I had to come up for breath, and with one of his laughs, he lifted me into his lap._

_ He knew I had been with other masks, many other masks, and he wanted to show me he was a better man than they were; he wanted me to know that he was the alpha wolf._

_ He sat me astride his leather-clad thighs and peeled off my dress._

_ I was surprised at the skill and deftness of his touch, but he knew, so very well, just where to touch me and how; he could read the language of my body, the way I moved, the sounds I made just like an open book._

_ In minutes, before he even had his pants off and me with my panties on yet, I was trembling in his arms, weak with pleasure, giddy and molten, febrile with lust._

_ I rolled onto the bed like I was made of water and watched him take off his leathers and his boxers._

_ Narrow hips, long, muscular legs, thick, meaty, hairy thighs._

_ He got into bed with me and hooked his thumbs under the waistband of my panties._

_ "Are you a real blonde, doll?" he whispered in my ear, with a low chuckle._

_ He had me trained; the sound of his voice and the feeling of his hot breath on my ear made me whimper and writhe._

_ "Yes." I gasped._

_ "Ya are? Too dark in here to tell. I'm gonna need to take a closer look."_

_ He was, at heart, a selfish lover; he was only giving me such exquisite pleasure because he wanted to burn himself into my consciousness, to make me forget all his fellow masks, forget every man I ever had, remember him always as the best, the one._

_ For no other reason than to prove he could._

_ But, that didn't make it feel any the less amazing._

_ I was swept along in the current; mute and blinded by sheer sexual ecstasy; I was beyond words, beyond speech, mewling and sobbing and clinging to his fantastically strong, muscular body as he made love to me, drowning in the immediacy, the deep, burning intensity, knocked almost unconscious by the last glorious orgasm I had, the one that coincided with his own._

_ I lapsed into blissful unconsciousness, waking up only long enough to hear his voice in my ears one last time._

_ "I gotta go home now, Blondie. You're a real good girl, doll. Maybe I'll see youse again, sometime."_

_ The next thing I knew it was morning and I was alone; and for once unregretful._

_ The Comedian has a steady lover, now, his partner, the red-haired Harlequin, about whom it is said burns with the fury and intensity of hellfire._

_ I believe it; you would have to be full of hellfire to be the Comedian's girlfriend, or else he would burn you down to ashes and soot._

Jean laughed a little at the famous groupie's purple prose. Her style was somewhere between romance novel and porno comic, and Jean imagined the woman probably had the same amount of brains and guts as Cheez Whiz.

However, it told her what she needed to know about Eddie Blake.

Armed with the knowledge that Napalm's partner was a macho alpha wolf who prided himself on his ability to drive women crazy who wasn't too keen on sticking around for further acquaintance, she devised the outline of a quick and dirty plan to seduce him, at her next convenience.

She would wait for the opportunity to present itself.

***

On a warm Tuesday afternoon, the Comedian came to pick Napalm up at the Institute at the end of the school day.

He was standing at the top of the steps, with his hands in the pockets of a pair of blue work pants, with just a white A-line undershirt on, smoking, insolently chinking the change in his pockets and eyeing up some of the older girls, a few of whom paused to look over their shoulders and leer back.

Jean walked out the front door in a pair of wedge platform sandals and a miniskirt, giving him a small, cool nod, out of professional courtesy.

He grinned at her.

_Chink, clank, chink._

The outfit she had on was a lot like what her students were wearing, and left over from her recent but abandoned ridiculous attempt to rekindle her fire with Scott, but it was a warm day and she didn't like to let anything she spent good money on go to waste.

The damn shoes had always been hard to walk on, and Jean was busy sneaking a look at Liv's big beast on a weak chain, and thinking about that Cosmo spread and what Liv told her about his bull-like prowess and stamina, not to mention his shockingly considerable skills as a cunning linguist.

_It's a crime for a man his age to look that good._

_ Even with that scar, that's a fine, good-looking son of bitch._

_ It suits him. Almost improves his looks._

_Even the way he stands and chinks his change, the despicable son of a bitch is good, I'll give him that._

Wait a minute.

Jean looked at her watch.

Liv had one more class to teach; it would be another forty-five minutes, maybe an hour before she came out.

Napalm wouldn't mind.

No, not Napalm.

Not at all.

This was the perfect time.

Itch scratched, problem over, and life can get back to normal.

And he's certainly not going to get attached.

The only thing was, Jean had never picked up a man for a meaningless quickie in the middle of the day, and she had no idea how to accomplish such a thing.

Then she remembered what Little Miss Groupie had written.

She had picked him up, casually after a Watchmen meeting, falling into step with him on the way back to his car, mentioning her apartment was just across the street.

Make it easy for him.

He doesn't like to chase women; he'd rather they come to him.

The shoes.

I can fall off the shoes, and he can help me up, and I can ask him to help me back to my office. Then...?

Then what?

Well, he's supposed to be a real horny bastard, maybe he'll get the idea and come onto me.

He's a real goddamn man, isn't that what they're supposed to do?

Everything good, decent, moral, and sane told Jean that she was crazy, but, nonetheless, she perfectly executed a fall off the platforms and crashed to the ground.

Vainly, Jean tried to pull down her skirt so the whole world couldn't see her panties and garters as her books and papers scattered everywhere.

Some of her male students stood there, dumbfounded, staring at Dr. Grey's matching sexy underwear and garters.

Jean was completely mortified.

That was not part of her plan.

"Lemme help ya up, Miz Grey. Hey, didn't your mothers teach you little punks any fuckin' manners?" the Comedian barked at them.

They scattered and he picked up her folders and helped her up.

It was meant to seem like an unintentional touch, and perhaps it was, but had it not been months since a man had touched her in any interested way, Jean never would have noticed the way, just for a moment, as he helped her to her feet, his hand lingered at the place on her thigh between her garters and her stocking where her skin was bare.

Jean shuddered, involuntarily, hoping he wouldn't notice.

"You alright?" he asked.

Jean lifted up her foot, absently, and rubbed her ankle like it was beginning to hurt.

"Yes. Thanks. I don't know what made me buy these damn stupid shoes last year. Who do I think I'm kidding, dressing like one of my own students?"

He looked down from almost a foot above her, arms folded over his chest, puffing on his cigar and gave her his crooked grin.

He had noticed.

"From where I'm standing, doll, you ain't kidding anybody but yourself."

Jean didn't like being spoken to that way by this animal.

_What an animal…_

_ Oh my God! Stop it, Jean, are you crazy!_

"And that means?"

He laughed.

"That means if a woman gets that worked up over a guy helpin' her up when she falls on her ass, somebody ain't doin' their job. And whoever he is, doll, he's either a nut job or a faggot." He commented.

"I think I must have twisted my ankle. D'you think you could help me back to my office? It'll only take a minute."

She tried to sound casual.

Little Miss Groupie hadn't mentioned the look; an inestimably sleazy leer that let you know that he knew exactly what you were getting at.

"Yeah? A minute, huh? Why don'tcha go siddown on that bench over there for a minute, maybe you'll feel better."

Jean sat on the bench in the courtyard, and Eddie Blake came and sat with her.

She felt repulsion and attraction in equal parts, and a good art of the repulsion was for herself.

"Look, doll, no offence, but you ain't too good at this kind of thing. The whole job, it was emabarssingly fuckin' obvious. And stupid. Groupie shit. Next time you try to pick a man up, don't act like a dumb cunt. It don't suit you. Walk up to him, ask him if he wants ta have a beer, or go back to your office or whatever for a good time. Just come right out with it; it makes youse look better. Now, I gotta tell youse, you're a real good lookin' broad, and I wouldn't mind showin' you what it is a real man could do for you. I feel bad for ya, saddled with some Boy Scout faggot who don't know shit about bein' a real man. But, my partner, yunno, your old school friend, is gonna come lookin' for me real soon. A coupla years back, I made her promise she wouldn't screw around with masks I work with, and I told her I'd steer clear of the mask broads she worked with. That seems to work out pretty good, yunno? Not to mention, I've known Jimmy a long time. He's my friend an' I can only say that about maybe two other people in the world. Hell, I knew Jimmy since before you was born. Considerin' how he feels about you, doll, I can't do that to him. It'd be like stabbin' him in the back. No dice, doll. Sorry."

Jean put her head in her hands.

"Oh my God, oh my God, I am the whore of humanity." She wailed.

The Comedian just laughed.

"You? Not on your life. You're just a desperate woman, that's all. Real fuckin' desperate. Now, what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna go in there and find Jimmy and tell him youse hurt your foot. An' he can help youse get to your office. That's who you're lookin' for, anyway."

The Comedian got up.

"Lemme give youse a little piece of advice about screwin' around, I can see you don't do much of it. Don't try to fuck your friend's boyfriends. Don't fuck some other guy anywhere near where your boyfriend can catch you. And don't play Little Red Riding Hood with a big bad wolf like me no more. You ain't the type."

He patted her on the shoulder, like she was a little kid, and, chuckling to himself, went back towards the school.

Jean sat there on the bench, utterly distraught.

That had been a complete fiasco; the man didn't even take her seriously.

And although he had let her down easy, he had completely and flatly rejected her like she was poison, and thinking of it, she was.

The Comedian might have been a lot of things, but a moron wasn't one of them.

What kind of idiot would blithely go off and screw his old lady's friend right under said old lady's nose?

And even a depraved supervillain probably wouldn't go off and have a quickie with a woman he knew a trusted friend and comrade had once been in love with.

Jean was still getting her bearings when Logan rushed out the front door, and down the steps.

He was at her side in moments.

"You okay, Red? I hear you took a spill offa them high-rise shoes?"

"I only hurt my pride, Logan. And my ankle. But it's not serious."

Then, something really horrible happened.

Jean just couldn't take it anymore.

She was disgusted with her situation, disgusted with herself, and suddenly mortified that her students had seen her underwear.

Her cheap, slutty, whore of humanity underwear that she had tried to use to lure that old degenerate Eddie Blake with, and he had, albeit nicely, turned her down.

She put her face in her hands and cried.

"Jeannie?"

Logan put his arm around her.

"I fell down the stairs and Eddie Blake and half the boys in the school saw my underwear! Look at me, Logan! I'm dressed like a cheap slut at a bad rock concert! I can't stand it, anymore!" she howled.

"It's alright, Jeannie. Ya just had an accident. An' there's nothin' wrong with a women tryna keep up with the fashions. I betcha a lotta girls fall offa those shoes. Guys too." Logan finally said.

Before she could protest, Logan scooped her up, and carried her back into the school.

"Put me down! Who do you think you are, King Kong and I'm Fay Wray?" Jean snapped.

"Take it easy, Red. I'm just gonna take you to the infirmary an' get Hank to take a look at your ankle."

They made it halfway before Scott strode angrily up to them.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing, Logan?"

"I'm just takin' Jeannie to the infirmary. She fell offa her shoes and twisted her ankle."

"I'll take care of that, Logan, if you don't mind."

For a moment, hostility flared up so strongly in Wolverine that Jean could sense it without even trying.

She felt his arms tighten around her, and her heart began to beat a little faster.

Then, the moment passed.

Logan carefully handed her over to Scott.

"What made you wear those crazy things, anyhow? I noticed you had them on this morning and I though, if I wore shoes like that, I'd fall down and kill myself." Scott asked.

"Maybe she was tryin' to turn your head, Cyke." Logan joked.

He was walking with them, carrying the offending shoe.

"Yeah, well, Jean, you turned your ankle instead." Scott replied.

He laughed and Logan laughed, and even Jean laughed.

She cuddled against Scott.

Maybe he would start to feel protective of her, and that would stir something manly and instinctual beneath his cool façade.

Perhaps this would lead to something.

She looked over her shoulder at Logan, who was twirling her shoe on the end of his finger, and he winked at her, knowingly.

Perhaps it would.

***

Jean really did hurt her ankle when she fell, stupidly enough.

She was laid up for about three days, and Scott actually took some time off to take care of her.

He was gallant, and sweet, and attentive, almost annoyingly so, and he rubbed her ankle with the foul-smelling stuff Beast had mixed up, but that was an end to it.

When Jean was up and around, Scott had his nose to the grindstone, again, and she was eager to get back to work.

Another Wednesday came and went.

Logan left to go see Napalm in the city, and Jean went to the library and checked out some Henry Miller and D.H. Lawrence novels.

At least they were literary.

On Friday, Professor Xavier sent her and Logan out to locate a student who was missing, and Logan was none too happy about it.

It was Friday, after all, and he had plans with his girl.

You know, like most people.

Jean wanted to search the woods, thoroughly, but Logan told her he thought he knew where the kid was, and directed her to a really sleazy dive roadhouse in the middle of nowhere about ten minutes drive from the mansion, where they located the 16 year old in question attempting to buy a beer.

The young man looked pretty scared when he got into the car.

"Are you gonna rat me out, Mr. Logan?"

"Naah. Not this time, at least. I'm gonna tell Charlie that you took a walk in the woods and got lost. But, if there's a next time, kid, I'm gonna hang your ass out ta dry. What the hell are you goin' to all this trouble ta get a beer, anyway. Goddamn fridge is fulla beer. You ask first, and drink one, I'll look the other way. You start stealin' my beer; takin' what you want, grabbin' a few for your ol' lady, I'm gonna kick your ass and then hang it out ta dry. You got it?"

The student nodded.

"Good. Where are all your friends, tonight?"

"At the diner down the road."

"Okay. Let's dump him there, Jeannie."

Jean didn't want to undermine Logan's authority in front of the student, but after they dropped the boy off, she let him have it.

"What the fuck is the matter with you? Underage drinking is not only against the law, it's against school regulations! And you can't be handing out cans of beer to minors on school property! Jesus, Logan, why don't you just line up all the fifteen year old girls from Combat class who have a crush on you and bang them in your office, over the desk, the way you were pounding Mel Reinhardt when I was dumb enough to walk into your office without knocking?"

"Hey, darlin', relax, willya? I know you was always good as gold, but most kids, especially now, by the time they're 16 they're drinkin' beer and smokin' reefers and screwin' one another in the bushes and they been doin' it since they were about 13. I mean, how many girls his age you think Hank's writin' scripts for the Pill for? Try most of 'em. Sometimes, if they ain't behavin' too badly, ya gotta let 'em slide a little. And if the kid wants to have a goddamn beer on a Friday night, he's gonna have a goddamn beer on a Friday night. Better he drinks it in the kitchen at the mansion than hangs around in a dump like that where he can get into real big trouble. I oughtta know. I spend a lotta time at that joint."

Jean frowned.

"You gonna report me to Charlie, cos I been a bad boy? Or are you gonna punish me, yourself?"

There was definitely a sexual innuendo in that comment.

"Grow up, Logan."

"Why? I made it this far, ain't I, darlin'? Shit. Workin' on Friday night. Jesus Christ." Logan replied.

Jean wondered, absently, what it would be like to have it matter that you were working on Friday night.

One night was just like another for her.

"I don't mind. I don't have anything better to do. Besides, we're done now. We can go back to the Mansion."

"It's only nine, Jeannie. You turnin' into a pumpkin? C'mon, we're out, let's stay out. Neither one of us is sixteen."

"I hate bars, Logan. Especially the kind of back-alley, back-door, roadhouse pool hall dives you like to get blind, stinking drunk in."

"So we won't go to a bar. Let's go to the movies. We're about to pass the drive-in. Turn here."

"Logan…"  
"What? Look, Red, if I was trying to get into your pants, I'd ask you if you wanted to go to the motel one exit up the interstate where they got king-size waterbeds and they rent the rooms out by the hour. C'mon, I took Kitty and Jubes to the drive-in last week, for Chrissakes! I hadda take 'em home before the last feature, though. When's the last time ya went to a movie at all? C'mon. We'll get some beer an' pizza and Cokes and cheeseburgers and popcorn an' chips an' watch a coupla movies. When's the last time you had a good time?"

"It's been a while. And you won't make a pass at me? You're not doing this just because you know I've been upset lately, and you still want to get into my pants?"

"Not unless you keep talkin' dirty to me, darlin'. If ya do, shit, I might not be able to restrain myself."

"Logan!"

He just laughed, and smiled at her.

How could she ever have told herself he was ugly?

Logan found a good spot for them to park, left the car and came back with every kind of food they had in the snack bar.

The first movie was a Vincent Price horror job, and Jean really had a good time.

They ate too much and she laughed and screamed through the first movie.

The second was the James Bond from a few years ago where he pretended to be Japanese, and Logan seemed rather distracted by all the Japanese girls.

He had seen the movie, and he fell asleep during the middle.

Jean was distracted by Sean Connery.

He had to continue to run around killing people and wearing next to nothing and being unbelievably sexy and Liv was right, Tony Stark did look a little like a combination of Sean Connery and Errol Flynn.

She thought of Liv's story, again.

Handsome, puckish Tony Stark with that in like Flynn twinkle in his eye, mad with lust, ravishing her, not Liv, in an adventurous fashion, in several exotic positions, on top of the Avengers meeting table.

The Comedian's hand, a man's hand, large and warm and firm.

Lingering on her thigh between her garter belt and her stocking.

She banished the thoughts from her mind, and looked over at Logan.

Once he had burned for her, longed for her, wanted no woman in the world more than he wanted her. He exposed himself to Femme Fatale's powers to forget her, he spent four months in the woods with Napalm letting her heal the wounds that her indifference and Mel Reinhardt's powers had ripped in him.

Mostly her indifference.

Napalm who understood him in a way Jean never could, one animal to another, one killer to another, bound together by a blood oath they took on a bloody birthday, maybe Napalm was a far better woman than her, all along.

Yukon Mel, too.

More honest.

He was Mel's old man, the only man she could ever have without being responsible for his death, and, as crazy and sick and wrong as it was, Eddie Blake was the love of Napalm's life.

She was just as likely to find love again as Mel was to find another man she couldn't kill.

Jean suddenly wondered what the hell she was doing, trying to steal the bread for other women's mouths when she had a man of her own, a man she loved.

_You got aggressive with Eddie Blake. _

_ You can get aggressive with Scott._

But, maybe I don't want to.

Maybe, after being taken for granted and then ignored for so long, maybe I want to know what it's like to be loved by a man who burns for me.

Shit, maybe I just want to get one good, dirty fuck from a real man, just once in my life.

Now, they were alone together, in the back seat of Jean's VW Beetle, at the drive-in , and Logan was asleep, again.

The last time she looked at him it was with feigned indifference; now Jean could no longer feign indifference.

She had begun to burn the way he used to burn.

It was just as well because he couldn't see her taking a long, lonely, longing look at him, and so she took one, letting her eyes travel all the way from the blue-black ends of his wild hair, over his rough-looking and stubbly face, down over his muscular chest, tufts of curly black hair peeking out of the collar of his lumberjack shirt, over his legs that were like tree trunks.

He was just about shoehorned into those faded old Levis, and she thought about how his thighs must be as hairy and muscular as his arms, thick and strong, and though he was a short man, built as powerfully as he was, he had to be pretty well hung.

As Napalm once observed about Logan, what a piece of work is man, the paragon of animals.

She didn't realise she had moved over, until she felt him moving and he yawned, and put his arm around her shoulders, gathering her closer.

She nestled against him, with her head on his shoulder and yawned, too.

"Sorry, Logan. I'm so goddamn sleepy."

"Go ahead, Jeannie. Take a nap. I'll wake you up for the third movie."

It was an innocent sort of thing to do, just to fall asleep with her head on Logan's shoulder. They were friends, after all, it was a friendly thing, just to fall asleep on somebody's shoulder.

She couldn't remember the last time she was so close to a man and even in its innocent, comforting way, it felt good, and she dropped off to sleep.

When she woke up, she was in the passenger seat, they were at the mansion, and Logan was shaking her gently awake.

"Welcome back, Red. You passed right out like you haven't slept for weeks. You wouldn't have liked the last movie, anyway. It was a porno. One of those Johnny Wadd movies."

"Napalm's a big fan of those. She told me she screwed that John Holmes guy, but I don't believe her. I can tell when she's bullshitting me. Jesus, I'm tired. I really went out."

"Can you make it in?"

Jean got out of the car.

"Yes. Well, I've been working hard lately. Still, I had a good time. Thanks for taking me out, Logan."

"You should come out with me more often, Red. Next time I'll make sure they aren't showing any dirty movies."

They both knew goddamn well that if they were ever in this situation again, Bambi could be the feature and they'd be going at it hammer and tongs.

"I don't know if that's the best of ideas, Logan. Unless we go with Kitty and Jubilee."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

***

Scott was asleep when Jean went into their bedroom; he only woke up because she had to turn the light on to get to the bed.

"Hi babe. Where were you?"

No use in lying.

"Oh, we found our missing student early, so Logan and I went to the drive-in. We gorged ourselves on beer, soda, and junk food. It was a triple feature and I fell asleep in the middle of the second movie and he had to drive home. You?"

"Oh, you know me, Jean. I just got to bed, I was working all night. I'm beat, as usual. Maybe next week I'll go to the movies with you. It sounds like fun, and I could use a break. Well, g'night, babe. "

He gave her a brotherly little kiss and went back to sleep.

Jean moved herself over as close to him as she could, and Scott rolled over and put his arm around her.

At least that was something.

It was hope.

She fell back to sleep, too.

***

On Thursday, Jean demanded to know if Napalm really screwed John Holmes.

"Sure I did. He was promotin' a movie he just put out in this porno shop over on 42nd street. The one where Paulie's girl, Rosie works in the nudie booth, yunno? Anyways, I seen the man in action and I was curious, so I showed up in my costume, yunno, not the one I work in, the Fuck Me, Daddy one that I use to pose for pictures an' shit. And he asks me if I'm really the Harlequin and I said yeah and showed him my Justice League ID card. I asked him if he ever made it with a superhero, and he said no, and after he was done at the porno shop, I drove him over the bridge and took him up to my room at Trivelino Mac's and we got it on."

"And?" Jean asked.

"What do you care, Miss Goody Tw0-Shoes?"

"Fuck you, I'm just curious! I mean, the man screws women for a living."

"Well, it ain't trick photography, I can tell you that. He was good, but I've been with Tony Stark. He's got about three inches on Tony but Tony's better."

"What about the hairball?"

"You mean Logan? You wanna hear something funny? I think Johnny Holmes only has an inch or two on Logan. It looks like a goddamn third leg. Man's hung like a mule. He sure is a fuckin' mutant. It almost looks funny on a guy that short, but, there ain't nothin' funny about it. He's had more'n fifty years of practise, nobody's better than Logan. 'Cept maybe Eddie. You wanna talk big, shit, Johnny Holmes didn't look all that big to me cos I'm lyin' down with Eddie alla time, but, anyway, I think it's mostly a tie. Between Logan and Eddie. He might not be tall, dark and handsome, but Logan sure is the best at what he does. And for my money, it's very nice. Someday I'm gonna get the two of 'em drunk enough to make me the meat in an' Eddie an Logan sandwich, and then I can die a happy woman. Jesus, that's a whole lotta cock. Why? You ain't thinkin' of makin' a move on Logan, are you? Because that would be real bad for both of youse."

"No! I mean, if I remember correctly, Scott isn't exactly Mr. Pencil Dick, either! I'm just curious as to what it is that women see in that smelly, hairy little furball of a Sherman tank." Jean retorted.

"Jean, don't play dumb with me. I know about that little comedy you played out with Eddie."

"He TOLD you?"

"Sure he told me. You know what he told me? He told me that my friend Jean Grey was going crazy from not bein' fucked since the first Nixon administration, and I had better talk to her before she goes totally fuckin' apeshit and starts hanging around outside the Avengers Mansion or the Hall of Justice on Friday and Saturday nights with the crazy mask groupies."

"I am in so much trouble, Liv. I'm really sorry. What was I thinking, trying to…make time with your…partner."

"Yeah, well, I ain't too happy about that, yunno? But I forgive youse, baecuse you ain't been yourself, lately. Jean, you're losin' your fuckin' marbles. You gotta either patch things up with Scott or break up with him, but quit doin' this crazy shit. You're going to end up really making an asshole out of yourself, and fuck up your life, and maybe your career and your reputation, too."

That was good advice.

Good advice that Jean already knew she wasn't going to take.

_(Author's Note: Can this really be our Jean Grey? Whether or not we can blame it on the Phoenix, what will she do next? And who will she try to do it with? And, if Scott finds out what she's up to, will he decide turnabout is fair play? And poor Logan! Can he fight the beast in him? Does he want to? Tune in to the next exciting chapter of Soap Gets In Your Claws to find out!)_


	4. Sharp Dressed Man

**Chapter Four: Sharp Dressed Man**

**X-Institute, One Week Later**

**I: Jean**

Sitting at her desk in her office, Jean admired her handiwork.

She had made a list of all the failures in her ridiculous plan to seduce Eddie Blake in one column, and in the other, all the ways she could rectify them.

A Failure Column and a Fix Column.

She looked at the Failure Column, first.

Failure 1: Relied on questionable information, e.g., the memoirs of a perennially cock-struck groupie with visions of spandex dancing in her head.

Failure II: Selected as target a man who is too close to a friend and colleague.

Failure III: Selected a man I dislike, someone who I would only want to know for an hour, tops.

Failure IV: Attempted to do the dirty deed right at the school, with no planning aforethought.

Failure V: Generally handled the situation like I was a cock-struck groupie with visions of spandex dancing in her head.

So far, so good.

Now to examine the Fix column.

Fix I: Don't rely on secondary sources, only on primary sources and your own research.

Fix II: Don't try to seduce your friend's old man.

Fix III: Only go after a man you could imagine becoming your friend, as well as your lover. You may very well need to develop a relationship.

Fix IV: Plan a rendezvous off-campus, and have an alibi for it.

Fix V: Keep your wits about you and quit thinking with your pussy. In a woman, the little head is very, very little.

Jean didn't have any candidates in mind, and she had work to do.

Her extracurricular activities, however, were going to have to take a back seat of official business, as she put away her notes and began to get dressed.

She carefully selected a blue corduroy blazer, a white shirt, a brown knee length corduroy skirt, brown boots and stockings for the reception at the Avengers Mansion that she had been invited to, on behalf of Stark Industries.

Stark Industries was looking into the sci-tech aspects of telepathy, and Tony Stark had invited Jean to mingle with some of the so-called psychics and telepaths he was considering hiring, to determine which of them were just trying to slide into a cushy corporate job with a nice vacation and benefits package.

Professor Xavier and she had done some research on psi ability, and they found that one in every twenty mutants and one in every fifty ordinary humans who claimed to possess it were either consciously lying, or just kidding themselves.

The ballroom of the Avengers Mansion, built by Howard Stark and owned, of course, by his son was filled to capacity.

Most were wearing formal attire, but Jean, as per her instructions, was supposed to look casual but businesslike, and obviously carry a clipboard and take notes.

This was the second such reception, at the first Jean had dressed formally, in evening wear, also at Tony's instructions.

Part of his whole complicated experiment to discover if any of these psychics were actually credible. The idea, she supposed was to see if any of them were observant, and mistook that for psychic ability.

Iron Man didn't just want to rule out the out-and-out liars, those who were convinced they had psi ability but really didn't wouldn't be helpful with his Mad Plan, either.

Jean wasn't sure what made her think of it as a Mad Plan, but, truth to be told she always thought that Tony Stark had quite a bit of Dr. Frankenstein in him.

Anybody who could make a self-generating battery that they wore permanently in their chest that was pretty much a tiny little Tesla coil, and a battle suit out of Vietcong nuts and bolts was a mad scientist.

Jean was mingling amongst the guests, taking notes when she spotted a very unlikely sight.

Well, not so unlikely.

It was a formal dress affair.

"Nice tuxedo, Napalm. It actually makes you look more feminine than most of your clothes."

"You like it? It's a present from my father. He had me fitted at his tailor. I got three other suits, too. One houndstooth, one pinstriped, and one blue serge. The Old Man says I can't always go around in dirty Levis, and since he knows how I feel about dresses, he figured this was a good compromise."

"You look good. Elegant and professional. And I like the French braid."

"Alfred did that. Me? Elegant and professional? I better go get my picture taken, then, so I can remember this. So, how are we doin? Finding any psychic wunderkinds?"

"I'm talking to her."

"Me? Compared to you and Charlie and Psylocke, I ain't got shit."

"Maybe not, Liv, but compared to the average human, you do have a greater degree of psychic powers."

"Yeah, well, I'm a witch, right? Doesn't that go with the territory?"

"You are not a witch. You come from a family of strong-willed and intelligent women with slight mutations who have a long tradition of practicing folk medicine and possess greater than normal psi abilities."

"Uh-huh. Like I said, I'm a witch. I got any company?"

"Not much. There's maybe twenty mutants, here only two of whom have any psi ability, and among the ordinary humans, only three. And you've got more on the ball than any of them."

"That's because I'm a Chroma."

Jean's face twisted.

"Do you have to use Magneto's word?"

"I can't help it if he coined the phrase, Jean. Some biologists have picked it up."

A Chroma, as Magneto called them, were otherwise ordinary homo sapiens with a chromosomal or other significant genetic mutation rather than the X-Factor.

Charles did not include Chromas as mutants, but Magneto considered them part of mutankind; it was, primarily, a difference of scientific opinion.

"What do you think, Liv? Are Chromas mutants?"

"Biologically speaking? Yes. But I can see why Charlie is iffy about it. If you include Chromas as mutants, that takes in albinos, conjoined twins, people with parasitic twins, microcephalics, you know, pinheads, and pretty much half the freak show. It also takes in people like Eddie and Paulie, who both have an extra Y chromosome, and people like me, women who have an XY chromosome that has manifested itstelf in the somatoform rather than in the sexual cells. Did I lose you?"

"At the end, a little."

"Okay. Lemme use myself to explain. I am what geneticists call an a viable XY female. So was my mother. And my grandmother. Viably XY females produce normal XX daughters and HY females, but no sons. Viable means fully female and capable of normal sexual functioning and reproducing. Which means the mutation didn't affect my sex characteristics. It affected my non-sexual cells. I'm stronger, and I have greater bone density and muscle mass and I'm more aggressive than ordinary XX females, which masks sense, because I have more testosterone. Eddie and Paulie, having an extra Y chromosome, that explains, at least some geneticists think, why both of them are such big beats. Well, Paulie's more of a gentle giant. But the thing they don't understand is why people like us are usually of greater intelligence, physical endurance than any ordinary humans, but also have increased psi-ability. Now, the people Magento is talking about when he talks about Chromas, are people like me and Eddie and Paulie. Not albinos and intersex people, and guys with three legs and six fingers or people with another face on the other side of their head. But we're all mutants, just as much as anybody who has the X-factor. That's just another mutation of the human genome. The thing is, Magento doesn't want to admit that him, and you, and Logan and Charlie are pretty much biologically equivalent to Zippy the Pinhead and the bearded lady and that one kid you went to school with who had an extra nipple. Mutation is mutation. And mutation is biologically normal, and fairly consistent from generation to generation, in all living things, unless there's some kind of major evolutionary event, which you don't want to get into. If people with the X-Factor were really another species, they wouldn't be able to breed with _homo sapiens_. And they wouldn't arise from _homo sapiens_ lines of descent. So, pretty much everything Magneto says is bullshit, and Charlie knows it. I think he wouldn't mind having the Eddies and the Paulies and people like me at the Institute, but then he'd have to take the normal guys with six fingers, too, and they might not do so well against Colossus in the Danger Room. So he had to draw the line, somewhere, and limited his student body to people with the X-Factor. Ya dig?"

"I'm going to try and remember ever word of that, so I can repeat it back to Charles, verbatim." Jean told her.

"Wait. Do I hear beautiful girls talking about science?"

They were suddenly joined by their host, in his white tux and black tie, with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other.

He looked like he had stepped whole and breathing out of a some glamorous movie from the 30's or 40's.

"I was just explaining the difference between sexual and somatoform chromosomal mutations in _homo sapien_ populations to Jean."

"With or without bottlenecks and extinction events?" Tony asked.

"Without."

"I'm sorry I missed that. I love it when you talk dirty. Nice tux. Double breasted was a very good choice."

"It was my father's idea. I know nothing about fashion."

"Well, your father may be a deranged homicidal maniac and a menace to the very foundations of society, but he is an excelled dresser. Can't take that away from the man. And Jean, I must say, even in your business clothes, you look a lot more glamorous than most of these women in these off the rack at Macy's numbers. Very tasteful and classic."

He excused himself, gracefully, and continued on his rounds.

"One thing about Tony, he really knows how to work a room. I'm gonna go see if they laid out anything good to eat, yet. See you around, Jean."

"See you around, Napalm."

Napalm had a point about Iron Man.

Tony managed to flirt with every woman in the room, heavily with the ones he found attractive, and still make each one of them feel like they were the only woman he had looked at all night.

And he spoke to all the men as if they were his oldest and best friends.

At dinner, Jean sat at the same table with Harlequin and Iron Man, and noticed both of them having more than their usual allotment of drinks, but the S.H.I.E.L.D Moderation Program rules did make exceptions for special occasions, as long as they didn't number any more than one every three months.

And it wasn't as if they were getting hammered.

Jean, on the other hand, was.

After the reception, and feeling every drink over her usual limit that she had, Jean met with Tony Stark in his office to tell him her findings.

It was very modern, but yet, very Art Deco, like the rest of the mansion, with its high celings and Deco arches.

Jean couldn't shake the feeling that she was in some crazy Golden Age movie, especially sitting on the other side of Tony Stark's huge Art Deco desk.

"Well? Did I waste all my money in a profligate way?" he asked her, swiveling away from the window in his chair.

"Honestly, yes. Out of all of these people, there were only five with any significant psi ability, and out of those five, the only one who has the qualifications for what you're planning Napalm, especially considering she's already a scientist with two masters degrees."

He didn't seem disappointed, as he untied his tie, put it in his pocket and unbuttoned his collar.

"I knew it! I have been telling Napalm that she is the only person in New York qualified for this job, and now I have proof! Objective proof from none other than one of the world's most powerful telepaths. How many drinks have I had tonight? I'm only allowed five. Oh, what the hell, it's a special occasion. Would you care to join me?"

Jean wanted to say no, but she found herself totally unable to do so.

Napalm had a point about Tony Stark, he did look like a cross between Errol Flynn and Sean Connery, there was the air of Robin Hood and James Bond about him, and the man did a lot for a tuxedo.

A wink and a bit of the twinkle in his eye, and you were ready to follow him, anywhere.

"I don't think so. I have to drive home, tonight."

"I think you've already had a few too many for that, Jean. You can leave your car here, I'll have Jarvis drive you home."

Wait a minute.

Maybe she had something here.

Tony Stark was about as close as you could come to a professional philanderer. Which meant he probably knew how to conduct an affair discreetly, and without getting…overly attached. He was devastatingly handsome, like, well, like a movie star, and if even half of Napalm's stories about him were true, a phenomenal lover, and, most certainly a real goddamn man.

He had class, style and glamour; if you were going to have an affair with Tony Stark it was going to be a genuine affair, just like in the movies.

Nothing cheap and tawdry, Jean didn't think she could have lived with herself if she did something cheap and tawdry.

She didn't have to gather information on him, she knew him well enough from working together with him. He and Napalm were only passingly involved; they were more friends and colleagues having a contest in sexual and scientific one-upsmanship than anything else.

Tony was certainly someone she could see herself becoming friends with, and seeing on a regular basis, completely outside the school.

And she was going to handle this in a clear-headed fashion.

"Well, in that case, why not?" Jean answered.

Tony brought her drink to her, and she caught a whiff of expensive men's cologne and even more expensive brandy.

What a life.

Hundred year old Scotch, English cigarettes, white tux and black tie, a swashbuckler's grin, movie-star good looks and merry, laughing blue eyes.

Jean was beginning to feel a little giddy.

She wondered, absently, if he could do it with the Iron Man suit on.

Maybe it was the booze going to her head.

Then again, maybe it wasn't.

She suddenly began to remember Napalm's Avengers Meeting table story, and she blushed a little, and coughed, discreetly.

Oh Jean, you can't.

_The hell I can't._

Now he was standing by the window.

Swishing his drink around in the glass with a certain attitude his hip cocked just the right way.

Lightening flashed across the sky, framing him and his window and his Deco desk just perfectly, and Jean almost found herself looking around for the camera.

"Look at that. It's raining, again. Coming down in buckets. I'll bet it's freezing out there. What a horrible night to go out in. You know, I hardly ever do, but I think I'll stay in my apartment, here, tonight. Let me call Jarvis, and ask him to get the car for you. And an umbrella."

Jean put her glass down on his desk.

"Are you trying to seduce me, Tony? Because, if you are, I'd rather you were more direct about it."

He turned away from the window, a very in like Flynn sort of grin on his face.

"The thought has crossed my mind. But I didn't want to speak out of turn."

Tony sat back against his desk, rattling the ice in his glass before he took another drink and sat the glass down.

There was something about the way he did that which made Jean realise she wasn't giddy from the booze.

"You see, I'd be lying if I said I had no ulterior motive in getting you to come here. I could have asked Charles to do the job you did. But, well, I must admit I did notice that you're in need of some understanding male companionship."

"I take it you mean when my tits fell out of my costume."

"You shouldn't be embarrassed, Jean. I thought they were lovely. But, no, if you'll forgive me for mentioning it, it had nothing to do with you zipper breaking. I noticed the way you were looking at Cyclops before the mission, and that determined look on your face when you ever so hesitantly unzipped your costume just a little."

"And he didn't notice. At all."

"No. But I did."

That last salvo, delivered with a drink and a twinkling smirk, and Jean was completely prepared to fetch the cushion and assume the position right over the big brass "A".

"So, you will be sheltering me from the storm tonight, then?"

It was a corny thing to say, but Jean was trying to have some decorum, preserve some of her dignity.

She promised herself that if she was going to have an affair with Tony Stark, she was going to watch some more of those old movies with Kurt, and have some conversations with him about them.

"Not tonight, Jean. I already have plans for this evening. However, if you think you can tear yourself away from your work, I'm free on Tuesday, around one in the afternoon. You can just tell everyone at the X-Mansion that you had to come back and re-screen some of the applicants. No one will suspect you in the afternoon, and I can have Jarvis drive you home in time for dinner. I'll be very discreet, and very swashbuckling."

He leaned over the desk, took her hand, and winked at her.

"I promise you'll be thoroughly ravished." He said, in a soft, seductive purr

That was only a faintly dirty thing to say, and Jean began to feel like she was going to melt out of the chair.

"Well, that's an appointment you can count on me to keep."

Jean felt terrible about making an appointment to be unfaithful to Scott, it seemed so, mercenary.

But, if she was spontaneous and indiscreet, he might find out she might be discovered and that would be much worse.

Jean had another drink.

Now she was getting drunk.

"So, who's tonight's lucky girl? An underwear model with the body of a Greek goddess? A blonde TV starlet constructed almost entirely of silicon who's poster is on the wall of every teenage boy in America? The latest Broadway ingénue? Twin Swedish stewardesses?" Jean joked.

She was getting good at this witty repartee thing.

"I've never been to bed with twins. That whole incest angle, it's too kinky and weird. Actually, none of the above. Just a little Irish-Sicilian mutt of a car mechanic and barroom brawler from Brooklyn."

"Napalm?!"

"Well, Prince Charming is off on a mission, assassinating the head of the Bolivian army with a shrimp fork, or something like that, and in the light of what you just told me, I have some important business negotiations to undertake."

Another one of those impish grins.

Jean realised then that his air of excitement, those twinkling eyes, that puckish smirk, they weren't for her.

They were for Napalm.

He was making an appointment to have her later on in the week, at his convenience, for a bit of harmless good fun, as a, well, almost a chivalrous gesture, to rush to the aid of a damsel in distress."

It was a friendly gesture, not something born of real desire, true fire.

That was reserved for the girl who always got away, the girl who was always just a little dirtier and crazier than he was, the fellow mad scientist with whom he could share his most Promethean dreams.

What did Liv said he called her?

The fire haired porno queen of superhero ultravixens.

And she was Poor Jean, whose boyfriend had abandoned her, alone in the world, with no solace.

No hope?

Maybe her desperation was palpable.

"Napalm, huh? And I thought it was me that you've been getting all hot and bothered about."

"Well, Jean, Liv and I have a history. You and I, we have a future."

Oh, he was good.

Very good.

But, it was too much like a movie and not enough like reality.

"And you're terribly handsome, and terribly dashing, and terribly sweet. And it's almost chivalrous of you to offer me your…assistance in my hour of need, as it were. But I'm looking for fire. For passion. For a man who burns for me with the strength of a thousand dying suns in supernova."

"My God, Jean, that was beautiful. I have never felt that way about a woman, or had a woman feel that way about me. I suppose everyone is looking for that."

"Thank you. I don't suppose you know anybody like that." She joked.

"Actually, I do."

So did Jean.

He was about five foot three, and he was fond of beer, hockey and great literature.

"Maybe you know him, too. He's a littler taller than me, more of the lanky type. Brown hair, red visor, leads the X-Men. A bit of a stuffed shirt, but a real good guy."

That answer surprised Jean.

"Scott?" she found herself almost snorting.

"Yes, my dear. Haven't you ever heard that charity begins at home? I don't need it. He does. I'll call Jarvis for the car."

As Jean was being driven away in the back of the vintage Bentley by Tony Stark's dignified and greying proper British butler, she looked through the rain-soaked window.

Framed by flashes of lightening, she could see the lights were on in Tony's office on the second floor, and, through the huge window with the Deco arch, in front of the Deco desk, she could see two figures in an embrace, before Tony closed the blinds.

Music swells, fade to black, the end.

I'll have to tell Kurt about this.

It was like being in one of his favourite movies.

***

Another week crawled by, and Jean made a decision.

She would accept no substitutions.

If she could come onto the Comedian and Iron Man, then she could certainly get aggressive with Scott.

Maybe he was waiting for her to make the first move, after all.

_(Author's Note: Hurm, seems like Jean doesn't want to fall into the silver screen with Tony Stark. But, is it Scott she really wants? And even if it is, if he remains cold and distant, well, then our Jean only has one other pair of arms to fall into, doesn't she? Hmmm, it looks like we might finally get some ball scores in this game, sports fans! Tune into the next exciting chapter, same X-time, same X-channel!)_


	5. Sticky Fingers

**Chapter Five: Sticky Fingers **

**Thursday**

**I: Jean**

On Thursday night, Jean drove into the city and bought a red leather micro-miniskirt and a slinky black velvet top with a plunging neckline. At the same store she bought a red and black lacy bra and panty set and black fishnet stockings and with red and black lacy garters to match and a pair of red-leather platform Mary Jane shoes with a stacked heel.

When she put her clothes on in front of her mirror on Friday night, she felt stupid, embarrassed, uncomfortable and mortified, but, she was all ready to go to the drive-in with Scott and ravish him hungrily in the bed of his truck, and if this is what it took, this is what it took.

He wasn't in their room, so she went to look for him.

As she passed through the hallways, several of the students gawked at her, and she thought she caught Kurt sneaking a look and Henry came out of the lab to tell her something he could have told her any time, so she figured that she was onto something.

When she located Scott, in his office, he was working, as usual.

He looked at her, and did a double take.

Could he finally be noticing that something was amiss?

"Oh my God, Jean, what the hell are you dressed for? Put…put something on, anything! Jesus, were you walking around the school like that? I can see your…your panties!"

_That's the idea, Scott._

He sprung out of his chair and started looking for something for her to wear, and, finding nothing else, he unbuttoned his shirt and put it around her shoulders.

Naturally, he wore a full undershirt.

"My shirt goes further down your leg than that getup does! Why wasn't I told you were going on some mission dressed like this! You can't go alone! Hell, I don't want you to walk through the school alone. And you're not going with Logan. He's only human, after all. Button up, Jean, button up!"

After he had her buttoned into his shirt, Scott finally stopped his fussing.

"It's not for a mission, Scott. It's for you."

"For me? What?!"

"Scott, you remember two weeks ago when I told you that I went to the drive in with Logan and you wanted to go on Friday? Well, I was busy last Friday, but it's Friday, again, and I'm all ready to go. You said you needed the time off. We can go in your truck. It does have an eight foot bed with a cap on it. And you never use it for anything. It'll be just like being a teenager again, except without the pimples. And you know what teenagers do at the drive-in, don't you?"

Scott's face turned almost as red as his glasses.

"Jean, I…I can't."

Don't yell at him.

Find out what he means by that.

"Can't, or won't?"

"Both. Neither. I don't know. Go change your clothes. Just go."

"Why? Do I disgust you, all of the sudden? Jesus, Scott, what do you want me to do?"

Anger flashed across his face, and his cheeks turned red with it.

"I want you to leave me alone and quit acting like one of those slutty teenage groupies who hang around outside the gates! Goddamn it, Jean, what the hell is the matter with you? Are you in some kind of second adolescence? If you have some kind of cheap, dirty itch like a bitch in heat that you need scratched, why don't you go ask Logan to go to the drive-in with you? You can vamp him in that hooker getup, and I'm sure the poor bastard won't be able to resist you! I have more important things to worry about than the fact that you can't seem to grow up!" Scott snapped.

Jean was hurt, she was angry, and she was stunned.

"You heartless bastard! You're not grown up, you're dead! Dead from the neck down!"

Scott got up, tore his shirt off of her, and threw it on the ground.

"Go on, go! Get out of my sight, you…you…you red-headed whore!" he yelled.

Now Jean was just angry.

"Fine! If that's the way you want it, fine! That's the way you'll have it! You have a good time here, Scott! I'm going to the drive-in with Logan, and I am sure as hell going to gave a good time, there!"

Jean stormed out of the room, and down the hall.

"I don't care! Do what you want! It doesn't matter to me!" Scott yelled after her.

**II: Logan**

As miserable weeks go, Logan had two incredibly miserable weeks.

He couldn't forget about three whole hours of holding Jeannie in his arms while she slept.

He knew it made him a sad, pathetic, lovesick old Canucklehead fool for feeling the way he did about it, but a man can't help the way he feels, and holding Jeannie in his arms was a little slice of heaven.

His heart had been racing in his chest the whole time and he went home blue-balled and practically had to hit his dick with a hammer to get it to go down.

Thinking about it, now, his heart had begun to race, again.

That was around the time he smelled Jeannie coming to his door, under a head of steam made from lust and rage, pounding on the door.

"Logan? It's me. Do you want to go to the drive-in again? I told Scott I could have more fun if I went with him, than if I went with you, but he told me to go ahead with you and have a good time, so, let's you and me go to the drive in and have a goddamn good time." She said, tersely.

Logan opened his mouth and tried to make words come out, but he was completely thunderstruck.

He was standing there in his threadbare military-issue undershorts with the saggy elastic and there was Jeannie, all dressed up like a two-dollar hooker on a Saturday night.

Wolverine was quite aware that his jaw was hanging open like a rube at a freak show watching the geek bite the heads off of live chickens, but he couldn't seem to do anything about it.

He mustered up every ounce of willpower from a lifetime of strict self-discipline over his animal nature to keep himself from hauling her into the room, slamming the door, throwing her onto the bed, unwrapping her like a Christmas present and having his wicked, wicked way with her.

Repeatedly.

While making noises like a wild animal.

"Well? Do you want to go to the drive-in with me, or not?"

Logan pulled up on the saggy elastic of his shorts and ducked behind the door; he was getting rather excited and said elastic was no match for something that had just come up.

That was it.

He had reached the outer limits of his patience, his dignity, and his restraint.

The hell with it.

Let the world burn and the stars die and the sea swallow up the land, he had tried to be a good boy and now he was done with it, and if Jean wanted to see what it was a man, a fucking real man could do for her, then he was going to show her.

Yes he was.

"Gimme five minutes, Red." He said.

"I'll be in the car."

Logan watched her walk away and he began to feel some serious physical pain.

He went off to take a cold shower and get dressed.

**IV: Jean **

They took Jean's VW bug to the same drive in, again, and they sat in the back seat, again just like last week, and this time Jean didn't even pretend to be ladylike, she ate like ten pigs and drank three or four beers, which was a lot for her, and told Logan the funny part of Liv's latest funny, dirty story, and he laughed.

The first movie was the latest Christopher Lee vampire flick, _The Satanic Rites of Dracula_, and the second was an oldie but goodie, Oliver Reed in _Curse of the Werewolf_.

"He reminds me of you, Logan. You don't have to put a lot of make-up on him to make him look like an animal." Jean sighed

"Was that an insult or a complement?" Logan asked.

"It wasn't an insult. I shouldn't be here with you. I don't know what I'm looking for. I know to you this probably sounds ridiculous, but I'm really starting to feel old. I'm thirty, you know. And I feel like they say you feel when you're thirty. Old and dried up. Like I'm just Professor Grey. Plain old Professor Grey. I might as well grow a beard. I know I really used to turn you on, so here I am, at the goddamn drive-in with you, like we're goddamn teenagers. I was going to bring Scott here. I'm glad I didn't. Even if I would have, I could have sat in his lap and he wouldn't have noticed. It wasn't him I wanted. I've been thinking about you, Logan. Thinking about how you used to feel about me. How it used to scare me the way you looked at me. I'd pay money to see you look at me that way again. But you won't. And I know Scott won't. If I learned the ancient art, of, I don't know, erotic bellydancing, it wouldn't turn him on. I've made an ass of myself for that man. In front of the whole world. I threw myself down the stairs to get Eddie Blake alone in my office, and last week after the reception at the Avengers Mansion, I got fortified with liquid courage and came onto Tony Stark. He already had plans for the night. But, they were both just substitutes. I've tried to be a good girl. I've tried to catch his attention. Scott's. For nothing. Bought all those miniskirts, and sexy underwear, and goddamn thigh-high nylons and garters. Nothing. I put this outfit on for his benefit. You know I even put my goddamn diaphragm in? I might as well have worn a burlap sack. He might as well be rooming with you and your stinky sweat socks that smell like old cheese. You know, tonight I did everything but say, hey, take me to the drive–in, I'll give you a blowjob, after all I haven't had your cock in my mouth for about five years, you used to like it and I did, too, and he told me to go with you. Like he can't imagine anyone thinks about fucking at all. Ever."

Without really looking over at Logan, closely Jean finished off her fourth beer.

She knew she was a little tipsy and way out of line, but she was too angry and frustrated and disgusted with herself to care.

"I don't know, Logan. I wish I could tell you that I loved you, or that I all the sudden want to know what it's like to be with a man who once thought I was the most desirable woman in the world. But, then again, maybe I'm just desperate to get a good fuck from a real man, for once in my life. At any rate, this is where our great romance that never happened ends. You used to burn for me. With the white-hot intensity of a thousand dying suns. And I blew it, so I could plight my troth to a man who has let cobwebs grow on my pussy. Pretty soon I'll just dry up like some old crone, I guess. I was a fool for love and I let you get away from me. And here I am, at the end of all things, a day late and a dollar short. Dressed up like a two-dollar whore in the back of my Beetle, waiting about seven years after the fact to beg you to let me suck your dick at the drive-in. How sad, and dirty, and pathetic. God, I am so depressed!"

Jean wasn't looking at him, so she didn't see the beads of sweat that broke out on his forehead, and she couldn't hear him grinding his teeth together, but after she delivered her parting salvo of her woeful speech, the howling wave of sheer animal lust that rolled off of Logan squeezed everything in her mind off to the side and hit her like a fist in the face.

She could see what he was thinking and words were not involved, but what was involved made her feel molten and weak at the knees.

At the same time, though, Logan was fighting himself, bravely, holding back from simply throwing himself on her, and then, the way the warm sun feels coming out of the clouds after you've been soaked by a cold hard rain, she could feel him burning for her.

With the white-hot intensity of a thousand dying suns in supernova.

"Jeannie, darlin', I never stopped burnin' for you. I would never make you beg." He growled.

"Then do something! Now, before I change my mind!" She told him.

He pulled her half into his lap and kissed her, fiercely.

Jean moaned into his mouth and in the flickering light of the screen she could see it, that wild, who cares, burn down the stars look in Logan's wolfish blue eyes.

He still burned for her, hotter than ever, and now, God help her, she burned for him, too, from some fierce flaming well deep inside her body and her mind, red and hot and infinite.

She looked at him with desperate lust mingled with surprise and gratitude.

"You're not just doing this because you feel sorry for me, are you, Logan?"

Now he was kissing her neck, licking the hollows behind her ears.

A slow, almost forgotten thrill of molten sexual warmth spread over Jean, and she basked in it like a cat in a sunbeam.

She felt very, very good.

"I feel sorry for Cyke, darlin'. Sorry he can't see what a woman he's got in you."

Logan's hands were under her top, he liked it, it turned him on.

"Was it the clothes I bought?"

He laughed.

She put her hand between them, and rubbed his stiffening cock through his jeans.

_Feels good to have a dick in my hand again. My God, he's huge. Holy shit, it's going to look like a third leg on him. _

"Darlin' I used to get hard from lookin' at your calves in your nylons. When you started dressin' up like a high-class hooker, you almost did me in."

Jean was feeling light-headed.

"Ooooo, Logan, say something else to me that's dirty. Scott never talked to me while we did it. " She told him.

"You gonna lemme see that sexy underwear you got on, darlin'?" he asked her.

He had his hand under her skirt and he was caressing her where the Comedian had briefly touched her, but Logan was unsnapping her garters and rolling down her stockings.

She wiggled out of her top as he unzipped her miniskirt and slid it off along with her stockings.

"I been wanting to unwrap you all night, Red." he told her.

Then he stopped to take off his shirt.

Jean ran her hands through the hair on his chest, feeling his terse, solid muscles.

"Those are some real nice wrappers you got on your candy, darlin'. It's a shame…"

_**SNIKT!**_

Logan waggled the claws on one hand at her and grinned as she sucked her breath in, sharply.

"…that I'm gonna have to ruin' em."

He always did look sexy with his claws out; she had almost gotten killed a few times thinking about how tattered spandex, blood, and adamantium became him.

And moonlight and adamantium, such was the stuff that dreams were made of.

"Naplam was right, Logan. Your claws are beautiful. You're beautiful. You really are the end product of a thousand years of evolution. What a piece of work is man. The paragon of animals." Jean breathed.

How was it she never noticed before that he was beautiful, quite possibly the most beautiful man in the world?

Though they were made of metal, his claws weren't cold, they were as warm as the rest of him, which made sense, as they came from inside his body. They felt strange and hard against her skin, slicing the bra and panties off her, but she had fantasised about this, about Logan slicing her clothes off and, although it was different than she imagined, it was certainly different in a good way.

Then he retracted his claws, and his large, strong hands on her body were sure and firm and hot, with calloused palms.

She was fairly panting as she unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants and Logan wriggled out of them and his shorts.

They were both naked in the back seat of the little car at the drive-in, like a couple of horny teenagers.

Jean felt like a horny teenager.

Naked and not ashamed.

"You know what? I never did it at the drive-in before." She told him.

She crawled over his lap, raking her nipples across his thick, hairy thighs, and thinking that the last time she'd done this to a man it was in college, but Logan was bigger than he was, much, much bigger.

It did look like a third leg on him, and she found herself giggling.

"I'm sorry, Logan. But it really does look like a third leg, on you."

"If you're laughin', darlin', it means you ain't scared, an' that's good."

"Oh, I'm not scared. I'm…ravenous."

It didn't seem to make a difference how big he was.

Jean felt almost entranced with lust, she wasn't thinking of anything else but how good it felt to have Logan's immense cock in her mouth and his hands and his fingers teasing her into little peaks of excitement. She gave herself over to the intense feelings of pleasure. She had this crazy sense of freedom and wild abandon, she just wanted to feel good, to get off, and to get this hairy little Sherman tank of a man off, and nothing else really seemed to matter.

So, this was what it was like to be Napalm.

The guy she went with in college, he always wanted to shoot his load in her mouth and for her to swallow it, something she had always tried to find disgusting but had actually found incredibly exciting.

Incredibly exciting.

He had one of his hands on the back of her head, tangled in her hair, growling deep in his barrel chest.

"Jeannie, darlin'...gettin' real close…"

So was Jean.

She sucked him harder, and he started thrusting into her mouth.

Never like this, she never had it like this.

The closer Logan got the closer she got until she came in his hand at the same time he came in her mouth.

Jean fell back across the seats, with a little cry, licking her lips, in the languid grip of a dense, lazy heat, her eyelids fluttering, reaching blindly for Logan.

"More." She gasped.

Logan was on top of her, his soft growl rumbling in her ears.

"More, Logan, more. I need you." She told him.

"You own me, Jeannie. I'm all yours."

He was kissing her and caressing her breasts and sucking on her nipples and kissing her belly as she felt all molten and wanton, her body stiffening in anticipation.

It had been such a long time.

She tangled her fists in his thick, black hair and opened her legs for him; put them around his broad shoulders, the hair on them tickling the backs of her thighs, making her want to laugh, again.

Was he going to…to…

She felt his hot breath blow those cobwebs off her pussy, and his stubbled cheeks rubbed against her thighs.

"Mmmm, darlin', you smell so fine an' hot."

Jean giggled.

"Do I? Do you like it?"

She felt the tip of his tongue drag long and lovingly against her clit in reply.

"Hotter'n the original burnin' bush."

Oh yes.

Yes, he was.

"You don't have to." She gasped.

"Darlin', I want to. You know how many years your sweet smell's been drivin' me mad? Been times when I thought all I wanted in the world was ta eat your sweet li'le pussy. Don't you dare try an' stop me."

Oh, that was dirty.

That was really dirty.

Jean laughed, almost drunkenly.

Of course, Jean knew it was wrong, she knew it was the worst thing she could possibly have done, but, just then, she didn't care, and that not caring, it was the greatest goddamn feeling in the world.

She untangled one hand from his hair and stroked the nape of his thick neck.

"Don't worry. I won't." she gasped.

****

"Ooooo…ooooo…oooo…OH LOGAN! OH GOD, LOGAN!"

The film in the projector overheated and ripped apart on the screen; all of the windows in the house nearest the drive in vaporised, as if the glass just disappeared. An unexplained electromagnetic pulse blew out every transformer in a square mile in a shower of sparks, and the battery of every car at the drive-in died and then recharged, bringing the cars to life in an uncontrollable display of horns honking, hi-beams flashing, windshield wipers flapping wildly, and radios blaring.

Jean moved her hands away from Logan's head, and found she had a tuft of black hair in her hand.

She sat up a little, wiped the steam off of one window, and looked at the chaos all around her, then rolled the window down a crack to admit the cacophony.

"Did I do that?" she asked.

Logan wiped his face off with his undershirt, shirt, sniffed it, shrugged, grinned, and put it back on.

"You sure did, darlin'." He said, laughing.

Jean rolled up the window, and stretched back across the seat.

Somebody was laughing.

Oh wait.

It's me.

"Logan, you got a cigarette?" she asked.


	6. Bringing It All Back Home

**Chapter Six: Bringing It All Back Home**

**Xavier Institute, later that night.**

**I: Jean**

Their moment of glorious unashamed happiness passed, quickly.

They were both pretty quiet on the way home and when Jean took a peek into Logan's surface thoughts, she saw nothing but shame and guilt.

"I feel the same way, Logan. What are we going to do?"

"Well, darlin', I'll tell you what we're gonna do."

_March right in there and tell Scott to join the 20__th__ century, already in progress?_

_ Explain to him that there's no shame in my seeing other people?_

"We're gonna forget this ever happened."

Oh, that's right.

Logan's stuck in the 19th century, too.

"But you have, what, three girlfriends?"

"Yeah. And they all know about each other. You an' me both know Cyke wouldn't go for that. You ready to leave him for me?"

"Well, Logan…I…I…"

"Then we better forget this ever happened, darlin'."

"Then what the hell am I supposed to do?"

Logan didn't have an answer for that.

Jean was feeling pretty guilty and ashamed; too, so much so that she took a shower in the gym, and put on the tee shirt and panties she kept in the gym, and stretched out on one of the mats, like usual.

Eventually, though, she went to face the music.

Scott was just sitting on the end of the bed, in his boxers, with his face in his hands.

He wasn't crying; he seemed far too despairing to cry.

_How could I do that to him?_

_ Well, he did drive me to it._

"Scott…I…I'm sorry."

"Well, it's not all your fault. I told you to go and do it. And I'm not angry with you, Jean. Or with Logan. I still love you. I'm just, well, I guess I'm just not much of a man for you, anymore. I just…I can't. I just…I don't have feelings like that, anymore. I haven't for, well, you know, months now. I'm just under so much pressure. I feel like the weight of the world is crushing me. In an indirect way, I'm responsible for the lives of every mutant on the planet. Millions of innocent people. Normal people, Jean, they look at me as a representative of mutantkind. If I make a mistake, if I fall from grace in their eyes, millions of people will suffer. Some of them will die. And that's not even counting my responsibilities as the battle leader of the X-Men. As one of the protectors of this whole school. There's babies here, Jean, little babies nine years old. Sentinels don't care if you're only nine years old. If I make one false move, if I lead us in the wrong direction, I'll be sitting here at this desk, and by the time I hear the screams, I'll be too late. Like I said, I'm not mad at you. Or at Logan. I know he won't do anything to hurt you. Or to embarrass the Institute or the X-Men. I won't say a word. I've…I've got no right to."

Jean felt horrible.

She was a telepath, how could she have been so blind to Scott's suffering?

He was keeping it from her, that's how.

How had he learned to block her from his mind?

Logan.

His good buddy, Logan.

"Scott, please…let me see how you feel."

"You don't want to know, Jean."

"Just for a moment, Scott."

She could feel the wall between them move a little, and then, hesitantly, he let her in.

Jean was enveloped in Scott's misery like a blanket made of lead.

It weighed her down, extinguished all the light and warmth from the world. His sorrow sucked the life out of her bones and her muscles and she sank into the nearest chair. She felt cold and remote in his grey, monochrome despair, bled white against the day.

"Oh my God, Scott! How long have you felt this way?"

"It feels like forever." He said.

It took a great effort for Jean to extricate herself from Scott's melancholy and despair.

She was at a loss for what to do, how to help him.

Jean stood behind him, rubbing his neck and his back and Scott absently shrugged her off and patted one of her hands.

"Scott, honey, if you want to continue to be our leader, and protect our students, and be an example to normal humans and mutants, alike, you're going to have to dig yourself out of this pit of despair you've fallen into. Have you talked to Charles about it?"

"Not really. I haven't talked to anyone about it."

"You should. Tomorrow, we should all go talk to Charles."

"That's a good idea. But, tonight, I have a job to do. I better go talk to Logan."

She didn't know it, but he had her notebook with him.

**II: Scott**

Logan hadn't even bothered to lock his door.

When Scott came in, he was packing what little belongings he had.

"What are you doing, Logan? You can't leave! This is getting ridiculous. Sit down. We have to talk."

"I can't, Cyke. I gotta go. I'm takin' Mel with me, if she'll have me. We won't be back."

"Sit down, Wolverine. That's an order. Don't make me take off these glasses."

Logan sat down.

"Go ahead. Blast me. That's what I deserve. I'm a low down dirty son of a bitch. Blast my head off. I feel like sawin' it off, myself."

"It's not your fault. Look, before you say anything, I know what happened. Was it…planned?"

Logan looked down at his hands.

"No. Hell, no!"

"Well, maybe it should be?"

"What the fuck are you talkin' about, Scott?"

"I mean, I'm a really busy man. I don't have a lot of…time for Jean. If you could…take her out…every…every once in awhile…and…and…no, no, I couldn't live with that. I just couldn't!"

Scott did not want to break down in front of Logan, but he had the feeling he was going to.

"Jesus Christ, Cyke, don't talk like that! I couldn't do somethin' like that to you! No. No way. This is over. As far as I'm concerned, it never shoulda happened. Hell, I got no excuse. So what if she wore different clothes and she acted different, I…shit, do you want me to go? I'll go. Like I said, I'll go and I'll take Mel with me, we'll go to Howlett, and never come back."

Scott looked at his friend and teammate, and saw the pained expression of shame and regret on his face.

"No, Logan, I do not want you to go. I don't think Charles, or anyone else here, would, either."

"I'm sorry, Scott. I really am. I'm sick about what I done. Sick in my heart. In my soul. I betrayed you, and disrespected you, and dishonoured myself. But, I swear, I just couldn't help it. I know that's a shitty excuse, but I just couldn't help it. I tried. I did. But..."

Logan's strangled voice cut off, abruptly.

"Jesus, you make it sound like it was rape. When a woman gets dressed up like a hooker on a Saturday night and asks you to take her to the drive-in, in her car, that's about as far from rape as you can get." Scott said.

"Nothin' like that happened. I wantcha to know, I didn't…well, I didn't actually, uh, do it to her, yunno."

Scott realised that was as close as Logan got to delicate.

The man was devastated.

He was beginning to see who the guilty party in all this was.

And he had reason to know those rumours he heard about Jean shopping around for a man in a mask, any man in a mask, were true.

_I forgive you, because it wasn't your fault, you poor bastard. Jean played you like a violin. She's a telepath, and you've been carrying a torch for her for years, and she's been parading around you in next to nothing? You never had a chance._

"It wasn't all your fault. It was Jean's fault, hell it was my fault, too. She shouldn't have brought you into our…private problems, but, well, better you than, I don't know, Tony Stark. Pete Parker. Just about anybody with a mask and a dick."

Logan looked hurt.

"Ya think that's the way it was?"

The poor bastard.

He thinks she wanted him, and him alone.

"I know. You will too, after you read this."

He handed the notebook at Logan.

Jean's notebook, in which she laid out her careful, cool, methodical plans to take a lover.

Wolverine paged through it, and as he did, he sat down heavily on his bed.

"I can't believe it."

Scott sat down beside him.

"That's the part that gets me, Logan. That's what hurts. It could have been me. It could have been you. It could have been the goddamn Green Lantern. Anybody."

"Anybody with a mask and a dick." Logan repeated

"Anybody. I hate to say it, but, she took advantage of you. She knew you were carrying a torch for her, hell, everybody knows, and she took advantage of you."

Logan threw the notebook on the floor.

"Eddie could see through her. Tony didn't give a shit. But me, I fell for it. The Ol' Canucklehead. The ol' Canucklehead took the bait. How could she do this to me?"

"That's what I been asking myself, all night."

"Well, I swear to ya, Cyke, I swear, it'll never happen again. You can kill me if it does, I'll borrow Napalm's adamantium machete, and you can slice my head right off and throw it so far away my body will never find it. I mean it."

"I'll hold you to that, Logan. Now, if you'll excuse me, I feel terrible. What I'd really like to do is get creative with mirrors and take off my glasses and kill myself. How do you feel about a suicide pact, m'man?"

"You blast me and I claw you? If I thought it would kill me, I'd be up for it."

"It's just not fair, is it? Well, seeing as how that's out of the question, I think I'm going to go get blind stinking drunk, and try and forget this ever happened. You wanna drive? When I pass out, you can bring me back here."

"Sounds like a plan. Lead on, Fearless Leader. Let's get annihilated."

"Can you get annihilated, Logan?"

"It ain't easy. But, I'm gonna try real hard."

"You got the money for that?"

"Not really."

"Well, let's do it on Jean. I'll know where she keeps her purse. She can afford it. Her father's loaded."

**Thruway Tavern, a few (zillion) drinks later**

**III: Logan**

Logan made good on his threat to get annihilated.

After a gallon jug of grain alcohol followed by a gallon jug of Yukon Jack and more beers than he could count, Wolverine was completely trashed.

He had his spinning head down on the bar, contemplating whether or not it would be necessary for him to puke his guts out.

When the feeling passed, Logan called to the bartender for another gallon jug of Yukon Jack.

Cyclops had done quite a bit of drinking, himself.

He had already puked his guts out, twice, and he was still tossing back drinks like a bum living under a bridge in the Bowery.

"You know what, Wolvie? This is her fault. That red-haired She-Devil. She did this to us. On purpose."

"You gotta point, Cyke. Baitin' me like that. For months. I'm only human, right?"

"Right! I mean, who knows who else she's been showin her ass to an' shakin' her tits at? Remember when she practically got naked on that mission with the Avengers?"

"Yeah. What the fuck was that all about?"

"It was part of her plan. I'm havin' trouble, Logan. Lotsa goddamn trouble. Woman's supposta helpya whenya in trouble. And what does Jean do? She starts lookin' for another man."

"Can't believe it. Never thought Red was that kinda girl."

"Me neither. Hey, bartender! One more gin and tonic down…"

_CRASH!_

Scott slid off his barstool and fell to the ground.

"Well, I guess that's it for us."

Careful to keep his glasses on, Logan staggered to his feet, picked Scott up and carried him out to his car.

He had quite a bit of difficulty driving back to the X-Mansion, as he was seeing double, and after carrying Cyke up the stairs, the world began to look very quavery.

"Yeah, I think it's time for me to puke my guts out." Logan said to nobody in particular.

He put Scott to bed, lying on his side, so if he threw up while he was sleeping he wouldn't choke to death, paid a visit to the altar of the porcelain god, and, after washing off his face, she staggered back into his bedroom, and passed out beside Cyclops on the bed.

***

Jean didn't sleep all night, when she heard the commotion in Logan's room, she feared the worst.

He had left the door open, and he and Scott were both drunk and unconscious on the bed.

Dead drunk.

Them just when she thought things couldn't get worse, she could hear Professor X summoning her.

And Scott.

And Logan.

"Great. Charles wants to see us."

Jean picked up Logan's phone and dialled an extension.

"Good morning, Hank. Oh, you're not? Well, wake him up, then, lady, it's an emergency…Don't snarl at me, Hank, I know it's only seven. Is that the purple one, with the wings…I thought so. Anyway, I've got a huge problem. Charles wants to see Logan and Scott and I, and they webt out and got blind, stinking drunk last night. Even Logan's drunk. I can't wake him. Is there anything you can do to help...thanks, Hank. I owe you one."

Beast arrived, in his bathrobe, about fifteen minutes later, with two stretchers from the Infirmary.

"I'll take them both down. Logan should wake up soon. God only knows how much he had to drink to be this far gone. As for Scott, I'll check him for alcohol poisoning, although he doesn't seem that drunk. I'll get them on their feet, and cleaned up. You stall Charles. Tell him…well, think of something."

"I will."

**II: Charles**

Professor Xavier knew that when you got a large group of people who were over the age of 18 living and working in close quarters together that their lives could take on a certain soap opera kind of quality.

Commonly, he kept himself out of his X-Men's personal affairs; they were all adults and what they did with their free time and each other was their business.

Of late, however it had become impossible for him to ignore the changes in personality of three of his most trusted X-Men.

Scott had not been himself for quite some time.

He put up a good front, and he was working hard, harder than he should have been, but it wasn't to his advantage that Logan had taught him how to construct psychic blocks in his mind. Scott had used the information to wall himself away from his comrades, and himself, and he was now lost inside himself, in some terrible dark place where Charles feared that soon, no one would be able to reach him.

Then, to make things worse, Jean decided that, at the age of thirty, she was going to have the naughty adolescence she never had, probably as a direct result of Scott's depression, which he was skilfully hiding, even from her.

Some women had a natural talent for naughty. Mel Reinhardt came to mind, but she was a Nymph, so that made sense.

And some women were, just, well, the earthy type; they had the sexual instincts of your average longshoreman or lumberjack and they made no bones about it.

Liv Napier came to mind on that.

But Jean was neither kind of woman; and having neither the air of a bad girl or the cheerful lust of a grown-up tomboy, she just embarrassed herself.

Terribly.

She began dressing like one of her students, and, sometimes, like those unfortunate and obsessive young ladies who camped outside the front gates, in all seasons and all weathers.

She began, for lack of a better word, vamping every male in sight.

The first not of concern came from Henry; he was quite blunt about it.

Jean's having some kind of premature midlife crisis and it's distracting to everyone in the school who isn't a woman. Somebody has to talk to her. Should I?

Charles told him to wait, and see what happened.

The next voice of concern was Kurt's.

He was often up late, watching black and white movies in the TV room, and Jean seemed to always be there.

He had looked at her in the dark a few times and he noticed she appeared to be crying.

More disturbingly, he had a report from Peter, who had a habit of working out in the gym before he went to bed that he had to stop doing it, because Jean was sleeping in the gym, on an exercise mat.

Most recently, he had a very calm and matter of fact visit from Logan, who requested that Charles install an adamantium padlock on his door and bars of the same on his window, and a series of telepathic restraints, so that he would be unable to leave his rooms at night after he went to bed until someone, preferably Charles himself, came to let him out in the morning.

"Why, Logan? You're not an animal. Why should you be caged like one?"

"It's Jeannie, Charlie. I can't take it, anymore. She's torturin' me. I'm in Hell. Pretty soon I'm just gonna decide, fuck it, and I'm gonna go an' do somethin' that I'm gonna regret, later."

Professor X was horrified.

"Logan, surely you're not talking about…rape!"

"No. I ain't. Not at all. I'd be welcomed with open arms. Not to mention open legs. You see my problem, Charlie? You see?"

Xavier did see his problem.

And Scott's.

And Jean's.

Their problems were all related, and if something wasn't done to change the course of events, well the result might be something that threatened everything that they had all worked so hard to build.

These were not the kind of topics that Charles Xavier was comfortable about.

He was not a prude and he had not chosen a life of chastity, but he had never been what he thought of as sexually extroverted; these were topics which he did not want to discuss and was out of his depth in, being, well, a little old-fashioned about the subject.

Erik, on the other hand, had always been something of a ladies man. The Sexual Revolution had not caught him off guard; it was just the rest of the world catching up to what he considered business as usual.

Charles was always loath to ask Erik for advice; although he never threw it in Erik's face when Erik asked him for advice, Erik never missed and opportunity to say I told you so.

But, to his surprise, this time Erik was not at all snide.

"Thank you for having the good taste not to laugh at me, Erik."

"Not at all, Charles, not at all. I knew you would get yourself into this kind of trouble without me. You're a very cerebral man, and the one thing you don't understand is that most of the rest of the world thinks with the little head, not the big one. You can't just throw a large group of people between the ages of 18 and 34 together, and then add that horny old devil Wolverine into the mix and expect sex to not rear its ugly purple head. Now, if I were you, I would call all three of them into my office and explain to them that I, and they, have a lot of work to do for mutantkind, so I would appreciate it if they could act more like adults and less like the teenagers they are supposed to be looking after. You see, Charles, like I've been telling you for a few decades, sex is just sex. It doesn't have to mean anything. And if your bright boy can't keep his hot red-headed girlfriend happy, then he's going to have to shut up and take it like a man that she's going to look for it elsewhere. Now, if elsewhere is down the hall in Logan's bedroom, then he should be goddamned happy that she's picked on somebody within the same organisation who is old enough and wise enough not to kiss and tell."

"I was thinking that was the solution to the problem, but hoping it wasn't. I'm not sure how Scott will react to that."

"Well, you can't have it both ways, can you, Charles? You're either a man or you're not. What's the matter with the boy?"

"I really don't know, Erik. Depression has that effect one some men."

"Depression! Ridiculous! You're in a wheelchair, Charles. Are you that depressed?"

Professor Xavier cleared his throat, loudly.

"Well, I, I ah, can't say, ah…"

"Please, Charles. Everybody knows about you and Dr. MacTaggart."

"Erik, I would appreciate it if you did not drag Moira into this." Xavier protested, stiffly,

"I was just making a point, Charles! That boy's problem is he has no balls. But, if he knows there's another man, and that man is Wolverine, right down the hallway, showing his woman a good time, he might grow a pair. You could take him to a psychiatrist. Or, better yet, lock him up in a room for the night with your adjunct professor, Trivelino Napier. That girl could make a dead man come. She'll straighten him out."

Professor X laughed, in spite of himself.

"I believe she could. Well, at any rate, I think I should go now, Erik."

"Good luck, Charles. And please, don't be pedantic."

"I'll try."

Professor Xavier hung up the phone.

He poured himself a glass of water, drank it, and then he mentally summoned Jean, Scott and Logan to his office.

It was early in the morning, but, no time like the present.

Erik was right about one thing; this had to be nipped on the bud.

He heard them all before he saw them, arguing outside his door.

"...just like men to blame it all on the woman! It's all her fault! So you found my notebook? So I planned it? So what?"

"It is all your fault! Everything was fine before you had to start acting like a whore!"

"Hey! Watch it with that shit, Cyke!"

"Now you're on her side? How dumb can you get? What are you, pussified, already?"

"You mean cunt-struck, Scott. You can't swear for shit."

"See, Logan? Did you here what she just said? How's this for swearing, Jean? You're a godddamn whore!"

"Oh yeah? Well, I'd say you were a dick, but you don't have one, you self-righteous son-of-a-bitch!"

**SNIKT!**

"Don't you raise your hand to her!"

"Don't be so chivalrous, Logan! She deserves it!"

"You put your hand on me, Scott Summers, and I swear, I'll make you shove your fist right up your ass! And put your claws away, Logan! This isn't your fight!"

"Yeah? Well if it isn't my fight, how come you dragged me into it? So you planned it? So what? So, I coulda been anybody! It didn't mean shit to you! You know how that makes me feel?"

"Is that what he told you! Scott, you asshole! You lousy cheap prick!"

WHAM!

THUD!

Charles wheeled over to his door, hurriedly, and found Scott lying on the floor and Jean standing over him, with her fist still clenched.

_Snikt!_

"You better not be thinkin' about hittin' her back." Logan told him.

"That's enough! Get in this office at once and quit acting like children!" Xavier rebuked them.

Looking sheepish, they all sat in front of his desk as he got behind it.

"I don't mind your hat on my desk, Logan, but feet on the floor, please. As you know, I usually do not presume to interfere with the personal lives of my X-Men. After all, you are all adults, living in close quarters together, and, as our good friend Trivelino likes to remind us, it's only biology. This time, however, I am going to have to break my rule, because the ways in which the three of you are spiralling out of control could affect everything that we have struggled to build. And after that childish argument in the main hallway, I don't think any of you are in a position to argue with me. Do I have your attention, now?"

Three pairs of eyes were glued to him.

"My X-Men, I know that I don't have to tell you that love, and, if you'll pardon the topic, sex, are powerful forces. Powerful and strange. They can exert forces on our lives that can be extremely destructive. I can understand what each of you is going through, and I empathize. But you cannot continue to allow your personal problems to weight so heavily on your professional lives. You are all adults, and surely you have learned the lesson that things are not always what they are supposed to be. If you have not, this would be an excellent time to do so. Without embarrassing anyone by naming names, I suggest the three of you come to an arrangement by which the problem at issue is quietly and discreetly resolved. Now, as I've said, we are all adults here, and as adults, we know that…sometimes these things happen. They don't have to be seen as a great betrayal, only as, perhaps, a mistake. What has happened is no one's fault. No one is wrong, no one should feel guilty. Am I making myself clear enough?"

Logan looked at his hands.

Jean looked at Charles' desk.

But Scott was looking right at him.

His face was twisting up, he was squirming in his chair, like some titanic force within him was about to burst forth.

Then, Logan stood up.

"Well, I'll tellya what, Charlie. You can slice this pie any way you wanna, but way back a long time before any of you were born, I sat on the porch of my mean ol' Pa's cabin, an' he told me a good bit about what a man should and shouldn't do, and I what I've done is somethin' a man should never do. I think it was wrong, all wrong and I'm sorry to both of you for it, Cyke and Jeannie. The last thing I want is for somethin' like this ta happen, again. So, I think what I need is to get in the wind, just for a little while. I been promisin' Mel I'd take her home for a visit. I got word her Daddy might have turned up back at his old job, and she's pretty excited that he might still be alive. I been waitin' for the end of the semester, but, seein' as how I'm the spare prick at the wedding, here, I think I can just have Combat finals a month early and take off with Mel for awhile. If that's alright with you."

"You'd do that Logan? Really? But this, this is your…" Scott's voice trailed off.

"M'big chance? Shit, Cyke, if this is the only way I get my big chance, I don't fuckin' want it. You think I can build my happiness over your misery? Fuck no! I can't be a decent man, an' live by the code of honour I swore by, or eve the code of honor my Pa taught me, I might as well go live in the woods and be an animal. Now, if you and Jeannie decide to be civilised about this, considerin' you ain't married an' that monogamy's about as natural to a person as paintin' themselves blue would be, maybe we can sit down an' have that little heart-to heart Charlie was talkin' about. You an' me an' Jeannie and Mel. But, you two gotta settle things between the both of you before you drag the ol' Canucklehead any further into it. Whatever you decide. You mind my gettin' in the wind, Charlie?"

"Of course not, Logan."

"Good. Well, I guess I'll go tell Mel to get packed, call up Napalm, tell her I'll be away for a little while. Month or so. Oh, and if Tony Stark calls to thank me because he inherited Wednesday for a little while, tell him I said you're welcome, but don't get used to it, bub. Hope ya feel better, Cyke."

Logan took his hat off the desk, put it on, and walked over to the door.

"You're leaving me? Just like that?" Jean demanded.

"Hell, Jeannie, I read your notebook. You may have fooled me, but that don't mean I'm your fool. I'll be seein' you. I gotta go see my Pa, an' take my woman home to look for her Daddy."

He turned around, squared his shoulders, moved his hat back, and strode out the door.

"You know what, Professor? That might just be the most honourable thing I've even seen a man do. You're certainly not worth it." Scott said, finishing with a shot at Jean.

"You know what, Scott? Fuck you! That's what."

"Listen to her! I'm telling you, Charles, she's lost her mind!"

"At least that's all I've lost!"

"What are you saying? I'm half a man?"

"No. You're not a man at all!"

"I'll show you!"

"I wish you would!"

Professor Xavier was completely out of his depth.

He resorted to focusing his concentration on both of them, and directed one forceful command into their minds.

_STOP THIS AT ONCE!_

Jean and Scott both fell back into their chairs, and Scott's nose began to bleed.

Charles handed him a tissue.

"I am sorry about that, but all this bickering is useless. Scott, you are going to have to do something about your depression. Perhaps you and I can talk about it for a little while, every day. And you are also going to decrease your workload and spend at least three hours every day doing nothing in particular."

"I could try that." Scott admitted.

"And Jean, I know you've been acting the way you have because of Scott's behaviour, but you really must control yourself. Scott is not a well man. He is going to need your help, and your patience. However, if you feel that you two need to…see other people during this process, that's for you to decide. Like adults. Without shouting."

"Charles, I want to help Scott. I don't want to go out and get crazy and have a second adolescence. Despite what he thinks, I'm not interested in every man in the world with a mask. I tried for months to get through to him. But he just shuts me out. Completely. Sometimes he won't say more than five sentences to me for days on end."

"Alright. Fine. I'm not shouting. I loved you, Jean Grey. I wanted to marry you. I took you back after you went away to college and you had some other man. And if I thought you really gave a damn about poor Logan, I wouldn't hesitate about taking you back, now. But I read your words, in your notebook, in your handwriting, and they showed me a cold, unfeeling, mercenary woman willing to do anything to get what she wanted. You say that's not the way it is? I'm with Logan. You're going to have to prove it to me." Scott told her.

"Will you give me a chance, Scott?" Jean asked

"I'm willing to try." Cyclops replied.

"Well then, let's leave it at that, for today. Now, you both look very tired. Why don't you go back to your rooms, and get some sleep. After all, it is Saturday." Charles suggested.

Scott and Jean left his office together, without shouting, which was, considering, a great success.

And as for Logan, he was quite right to remove himself from the equation; he only stood to cause further pain for Jean and Scott, and garner further pain for himself.

The Professor's phone rang.

It was Erik, wanting to know what happened.

Charles told him, admitting his optimism.

"Charles, Charles, Charles, you're such a Victorian. Your fair-haired boy and that redhead will get back together for awhile, and everything will be just ducky until Logan gets back, and then, as soon as things go awry, she'll be rushing back to wild, wild Wolverine. But, the thing about Little Miss Jean is, she's the kind of woman who only wants a man like Logan around when it suits her. Which is for about an hour, preferably after midnight. So she'll be running back to her red-eyed lover boy, again. And that's when the real showdown will happen. Now, you throw a little of that Mel Reinhardt into the mix, and, don't forget, a touch of Napalm. If those two get to thinking that Little Miss Jean is doing anything to harm their Logan, look out. There will be blood, then, Charles, and I don't mean that, metaphorically. Talk to your fair-haired boy, Charles. Convince him an open relationship is a good thing. Remind him he's only been with one woman in his life. Or else, as they say, the whole shithouse is going to go up in flames."

"How would I convince Scott of such a thing?"

"Put him in Napalm's path. Ultraviolence is only one of the things she does best. She'll think it's a lark, ravishing the poor, innocent little lamb. She'll make a man of him, he'll realise that monogamy is for morons, and then Miss Jeannie can be doubly fucked and trebly happy, and Cyclops and Wolverine can have a few beers and laugh about their girlfriend. Everybody's happy. The End."

Charles was actually rather hoping that things didn't come to that.

**III: Logan**

Logan made it into his rooms, fell back into his bed, and slipped into a deep sleep of stupor and despair.

He woke up when he heard noises in his room, but it was just Mel, and he didn't want to be awake, so he went back to sleep.

Finally, though, he could sleep no longer.

It was terrible, the horrible suffocating feeling of being eaten alive by the ferocious, thermonuclear force of his own uncontrollable emotions.

He didn't know how long he lay there, trying to regain control until it began to fade in its white hot intensity, and he was aware, again, of who he was and where he was, of the tears on his eyes and the ache in his balls.

As he was fond of observing, he and pain were old friends, but this kind of pain, it was unbearable.

There wasn't enough booze in the world to chase it away, not enough tears left in him to cry it out; he felt old and bitter and sick, sick in his soul, or what was left of it.

Then, something happened.

A miracle.

It was a sponge that soaked up his agony, a warm blanket that protected him from the chill of his bitterness, a soothing balm slathered over the bleeding wounds in his tattered soul.

It could only be one thing.

He turned over, blindly, rolling into the soothing arms of the woman who had laid down beside him on the bed.

"So, did I ever tell you that I'm learning how to use my powers for good? I figure it's safe for me to practise on you."

"Gimme all you got, Mel. I need it."

"What's the matter, baby? I ain't had to clean up a mess like that since Gypsy came back to out pad drunk from his bombardier reunion party. What have they done to you, now?"

"We gotta get in the wind, Mel. Now. We'll take your bus and go up to Howlett. Find out if Fritzy really is alive. Go see the old man. Go home. Just for a little while." He told her.

"Is that OK with Charlie, or are we buggin' outa here for good?"

"Ya mean if I said we was goin' for good, you'd go?"

"Well, sure. I ride with you. Where you go, I go."

"That's good ta know, Mel. It's OK with Charlie."

"Did the right thing, huh? You were a good boy and did the right thing, the honourable thing, an' now you feel like sawin' off your own head?"

"Yeah. I don't think it was ever your powers that made me want to saw off my own head, Mel. I think it was Jeannie all along. You're my woman, and nothin' about me an' Jeannie could change that, an' I don't want it to, but that woman, she's in my blood."

"Not to be too nosy, but, why? I mean I know Jean's your friend, but, baby, she's never gonna feel the way about you that you feel about her. Even if she gets ol' Cyke to give her the okee-dokee to ball the shit outa you, guilt free, she's head over heels in love with Mr. Dry White Toast, and that's the way it is. Now, the way I see it, the last thing a cat like you needs, is a chick like that, because you may be a lot of things but a Square John ain't one of them. For one thing, she isn't even the one who's in your blood. That would be Napalm, and if she knew that Jean stomped all over your heart like this, she'd be over there tearing hers out of her chest. It's blood between you and Napalm, yunno? And you got me, too. I love you."

Logan opened his eyes and sat up with a start.

It made him dizzy, but he didn't care.

"You do, Mel? What the hell for?"

"You didn't know that? Logan, you're the only man I ever met besides Gypsy who I been serious about. And I got no more future with Gypsy than you do with Jean. I can't have Gypsy, an' you can't have Jean, but we got something together, you an' me. We grew outa the same snow, and we've shared the same kinda crazy outlaw destiny. An' I meant it when I said I don't care if I can't ever touch another man, I'm happy with you. I had lotsa guys. Fuck them. You've made me forget what they even look like. You're my old man. Sure I love you. Who the hell else am I gonna love? I mean, look, any other guy, my powers would kill him. But, as long as I keep them under control, not only don't they bother you, I can use 'em to help you. And for most women, you'd be a lot more than they can handle. Not me. It's like what Napalm says. When you're outcast among outcasts and a freak among freaks, you gotta stick together. Like those last two Cheerios at the bottom of the bowl. That's you an me."

"You know, Mel, I told Jeannie that I was all the man you had and you were my woman an' I wanted ta stick with you. I ain't sorry I did. You're the only girl I ever met I ever though about takin' home to my Pa."

"Hell, Logan, you got to call that love. Now, c'mon, we're wastin' time we could be on the road. You get your shit together and I'll get mine. I guess you gotta call Napalm, too, so I'll load the bikes up in the rack behind the van, and we'll get the fuck outa here. Let Queen Jean an' her Plastic Fantastic Lover figure their shit out. You and me are gonna go home, and see Fritzy and Old Black Tom, I know they're both there waitin', I can feel it in my bones. And we're gonna have a real sweet time, goin, baby. I'm not gonna give you room to think about Jean Grey. The only thing you're gonna be thinkin about is when I'm gonna have mercy on your ass, and let you sleep through a night, and that's gonna be when Hell freezes over."

Logan smiled, in spite of himself.

"You're quite a woman, Yukon Mel."

"Shit, Logan, you're a helluva man. Lemme give you another belt of that ol' time healin', an' I think you'll be on your feet, again. How much did you have to drink?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, darlin'. Jesus, before we get goin, I'm gonna go out to the pond in the woods, and dunk myself in the cold water. I don't smell so good."

"Sounds like fun. Let's get goin'."

"Mel?"

"Yeah, baby?"

"She mad a plan out, in a notebook. It coulda been anybody. Anybody at all."

"I don't know about that, Logan. If I was Jean, I woulda made a plan out, so I didn't get caught and have my reputation as Miss Goody Two-Shoes ruined. A chick like Jean, her reputation means a lot to her. Sure, she mighta taken anybody who she thought would do the job well and keep his mouth shut, but I'll bet she'd rather have you."

"You really think so?"

"Yeah. But I'll tell you what else I really think, and I'll tell it to you straight. That don't change shit between her and Cyke, and you'll always be the odd man out."

"I know. I knew that when I did it."

"Don't be too hard on yourself, baby. Like Napalm, always says, it's just biology. C'mon. Let's go take that swim. And get the fuck outa here before the shit hits the fan."

**IV: Jean**

Jean was in her office, correcting some papers, when Logan walked in.

"I just wanted ta say goodbye before I left."

"Are you sure you're coming back?"

"Sure, I'm sure."

"You know, Logan, I'd like to be able to say I'm sorry about what we did, and that I never wanted it to happen again, but that would be lying."

"Well, Jeannie, darlin', you know I love you, an' I always will, but goddamnit, I am sorry about what we done, and I'm not gonna let it ever happen again. I know you love me, but not the way I love you. Cyke, he's the one you love. I'm not about to get in the middle of that. For another, I got Mel to think of. I'm all the man she's got in the world, and she's my woman, an' she means a lot to me. More'n I like to admit. Sure, I don't think it'd bother her, me puttin' your name on my dance card, but if I was with you there wouldn't be much room in m'life for her, and not only ain't that right, it ain't what I want. I got Wednesdays with Napalm, and th' rest of the week with Mel, an' you got Cyke, an' that's the way it's gonna stay, because that's the only thing that's right. For all of us."

Jean had a funny feeling that he was right.

"I thought you'd say that. Well, I hope you and Mel have a good trip. And I hope she finds her father. Don't be a stranger, you know Charles will worry if you never call. And so will I. After all, you're still my friend."

"Well, that ain't likely to change. Seeya in a coupla months, Jeannie."

"Alright, Logan."

He left, closing the door behind him.

Jean put her pen down, and went back to her bedroom, to throw herself on the bed and cry, but Scott was already sitting on the end of the bed in his underwear with his head in his hands.

Oh, what the hell?

"Are you crying because Logan's leaving you flat?" he finally asked her.

"No. I'm crying because, between the two of us, in the past few months we've done everything we can to ruin our lives, our happiness, our relationship, and our friendship. And despite what kind of happy faces we put on for Charles, I don't know if we can ever fix things." She told him, between sobs.

"I don't know either, Jean. And I think that depresses me the most."

Jean went on crying, until she had cried herself out, and Scott continued to sit on the edge of the bed, brooding.

He wanted to comfort her; but he just couldn't bring himself to do it.

After she cried herself to sleep, even though it was the middle of the day, Scott lay down beside her, and went to sleep, too.

***

Ring.

Ring.

Riiiiiiing.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiinggggg!

Blessed silence.

But no!

A soft knock on his bedroom door.

"Mr. Stark?"

"For the love of God, Pepper, I've been awake for 48 hours and asleep for two! My suit is crushed like a beer can on a frat boy's skull, and I feel like I've been tied in a sack and beaten with croquet mallets before being stuffed in a barrel full of rocks and rolled down a hill! Can't you take a message!"

"It's Miss Napier, sir. Something about Wolverine going on vacation, and Wednesdays, starting today, being freed up."

Tony lunged for the phone on the night table.

"Thank you, Pepper."

"I'll just go and hang up now."

"Hello, Tony? I can call back later if you're fucked up."

"I am extremely fucked up. But I will also be fucked up later. You might be just the cure for what ails me, Naplam. Yes, I am free today. And the next Wednesday. In fact, I am free on as many Wednesdays as there are in Logan's vacation."

"Good. And this would probably be a good time for us to start work on this ESP hypothesis you've come up with. It might just tie in to my private research with Jon."

"Wait. I get your body, and your mind?"

"They tend to be a package deal."

Tony Stark leaped out of bed.

"Well, then we have to get started! Right away. I'll meet you at the Avengers Mansion in an hour. Can you be there?"

"Sure I can. See you soon."

"Oh, and Napalm?"

"Yes."

"Don't wear anything complicated. I hope you like it in the morning."

"You know me, Tony. I like it all the time."

After Tony hung up the phone, he threw open the drapes in his bedroom with a flourish and let the glorious sunshine in.

What a beautiful morning!

Then, he strode across his bedroom and opened the doors wide, stretching out his arms and then, briefly, pounded his fists against his chest.

"Tony! You're naked!"

"Yes, Pepper, I know. Sorry to alarm you, but it is first thing in the morning. I'm going to go take a shower, and then I'm going to smack my dick with a hammer so I can fit it in my pants. Then I'm going to get dressed and have Napalm for breakfast. Also, breakfast with Napalm. I'll be back in a few hours. Go down into the bunker and turn on the utilities. We have so much to do and so little time!"

"Yes, Mr. Stark."

He hurried down the hallway to the bathroom, went in, and then stuck his head out the door.

"Did what I just said offend you?"

"No, Mr. Stark."

"Good."

Pepper heard the shower come on, and then she heard Tony singing a Beatles tune, happily, and right on key, in his throaty baritone.

_Happiness Is a Warm Gun._

Strangely appropriate.

She laid his clothes out for him on his bed, and just after she was done, he came back into the bedroom in his robe.

"Now you're my valet, too, Pepper? You know me too well. This is exactly the suit I was going to wear."

"Tony, I don't mean to pry-"

"-that never stopped you before-"

"-but, your appointment book has Jean Grey's name written in it in red pen, and crossed out. I know what women's names in red ink in your appointment book, means. Don't you think that would be a bad idea?"

"Yes, actually."

"Then why were you going to do it?"

"Chivalry."

"Chivalry?! How is sleeping with Cyclops' longtime girlfriend behind his back, and even worse, making an appointment to do it, chivalrous?"

"She was the damsel in distress, Pepper. What kind of man would I have been to turn her away, in her hour of need?"

Pepper rolled her eyes.

"It's not the fact that you have the sexual morality of an alley cat that gets me, Tony. It's the way you justify it. I suppose you can't just turn Napalm away in her hour of need, either?"

"Pepper! I'm surprised at you! First, you expect me to turn my back on a desperate woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown, and then you want me to abandon Napalm? She needs me. She's an alcoholic, and a nymphomaniac, and she has appealed to me to help her in her, as you so rightly put it, hour of need. How could I refuse, and still call myself a decent, honourable man."

"You're a real piece of work, Stark." Pepper snorted.

"And you're just jealous, Potts. Now, I have to get dressed. You should go."

"Yes. I have _work_ to do today."

"So do I."

_(Author's Note: Now, now, don't get too upset, gentle readers. If there was no angst, it wouldn't be a soap opera, would it? So, is Professor X's optimism warranted, or is Magneto going to get to say I told you so. And you know who hasn't showed up in this story yet to rain on Logan's parade? Sabretooth. What's he got to do with it? Much. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for being so supportive of this story, and gently remind [shameless plug] you to check out the other comics stories I wrote, as they are all in the same universe as this one. Moonlight and Adamantium is about how Logan met Napalm, Suicide Kings is about how Eddie met Napalm, Full Adamatium Jacket is about how Logan met Eddie, Blue Light Special is about how Tony met Napalm, and they are all featured in The Joke's On Me, and will be in the two as yet unwritten sequels to same. And, if any of you hopeless romantics are Sally Jupiter/Eddie Blake fans, Born Under A Bad Sign and I Can't Quit You, Baby, are about them. Thank you for reading this shameless plug. And if you really want to be confused, check out Irony. I wrote it, and I'm confused! See you again, soon, same X-Time, same X-Channel!)_


	7. For No One

**Chapter Seven: For No One**

**Xavier Insitute, Two Weeks Later, Jean and Scott's Rooms**

**I: Jean**

Lying in bed, alone, in the early hour following dawn, Jean couldn't help but think about Edgat Allen Poe, and _The Masque of the Red Death_.

Prince Prospero and his merry band of rich, profligate aristocrats, fleeing the plague that was killing commoners by the wagonload, to go and live it up in his castle in the countryside.

That insane, profane masked ball, and the strike of midnight, when the Prince called out, "Unmask, unmask!"

And one of the guests proved to be Death itself, the Grim Reaper clothed in his red cloak of pestilence, bringing the plague to those who had sought to flee from it.

What was it they said about Death?

That Death came to kings and peasants alike?

It was the way the story had ended.

"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."

Unmask! Unmask!

And the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

Logan was gone, and he took his woman with him.

He packed his duffel bag, and they loaded their motorcycles onto the rack on the back of her VW Camper and rolled out, on an adventure to the Great White North.

Home to Howlett, where perhaps two fathers waited for their return.

She couldn't blame him for going.

It wasn't his problem. She and Scott made it his problem. Using him, in a way, as a pawn in the little chess match they were playing with each other.

Why should Logan, a man of dignity, a man of honour, a man who already had two women on his dance card already, stick around with his hat, and his dick, in his hand, waiting to see how the scratching match between her and Scott turned out?

She hoped he'd have a good vacation; she was glad he'd gotten out while the getting was good.

Unmask.

She had played her little masquerade with Eddie Blake and Tony Stark, now even that was behind her, and Scott had been playing a masquerade of his own, for many months, now.

But she had dragged Logan into it, and she knew she'd hurt him, hurt him deeply and needlessly, perhaps thoughtlessly, as well.

Time for the ball to end.

Unmask!

Unmask!

Since the meeting, with Charles, Scott had been meeting with Charles again, every morning.

Jean didn't know what was going on, but it seemed to be helping.

He seemed happier, he wasn't killing himself working, and his surface thoughts that she could skim now that he let down his psi blocks a little seemed to be breaking out of the logjam of his despair.

Scott was getting help, and that was good. They were spending more time together; he seemed to be coming back to his old self.

She imagined he was sleeping through most nights, but she didn't know, because he had taken to sleeping on the couch.

Jean didn't say anything to him.

Until she woke up at dawn, hearing that cry.

Unmask, unmask!

And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

Jean didn't bother with clothes, she got out of bed in her shorty nightie and her panties and walked into the main room.

"Good morning, Scott." She said, casually.

So casually that you never would have thought that she had put her hand down the front of his boxers, and she had accompanied her greeting with a friendly little squeeze.

Jean walked over to the TV and shut it off.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked.

"What? Jean? Huh?"

Scott was sitting up, now, adjusting his glasses so they were no longer crooked.

"I asked you if you slept well."

"Jean, get you hand out of my pants. We have to talk."

Talk?

Well, that was something, at least.

She sat down beside him on the couch.

"I've been thinking about my conversations with Charles, and I realise I haven't been completely honest with you. Which isn't fair, because I've read your notebook, so you ended up being honest with me whether you wanted to or not. My overwork and my depression are not the only reasons that we went downhill, fast. The truth is, I got to the point where I, Jesus, this is hard to tell you, I just wasn't attracted to you, anymore."

That was the last thing Jean ever expected Scott to say.

Unmask, indeed.

"What? What do you mean? What?" she stammered.

"Jean, for a telepath, there are some things you know nothing about, and one of those things is what attracts a man to a woman. Like in your notebook, when you wrote how you couldn't figure out why the Comedian turned you down, flat. Or why Tony Stark wanted Napalm, instead of you. Or what it is any man sees in Liv. I think I can explain that."

Jean was dumbstruck, she couldn't do anything but nod.

"There are pretty much three things that attract a man to a woman. The first one, and there's no nice way to say this, is tits and ass. I know it's a cliché, but it's true. The second is that she treats him like a man. And the third is that she isn't a bitch. And one out of three isn't good enough."

"Scott, are you saying I'm a bitch and I don't treat you like a man?"

"Yes."

"What? WHAT! You rotten bastard!"

"Jean, please, hear me out. I have to tell you this."

"You have to tell me this? Fine. Then I get to have my say."

"That's the way conversations work, Jean. Now, like I was saying, you don't treat any man like a man, not just me. Because, somewhere along the line, you decided that you were The Great and Powerful Miss Jean Grey. To the rest of the world I might be Cyclops, leader of the X-Men, but to you, I was Oh, Scott. As in, Oh, Scott, pick up your socks, they're everywhere; Oh, Scott, your glasses are dirty, again; Oh, Scott, do you have to watch so much TV and, my favourite, Oh, Scott, you're just like a little boy, sometimes. It got to the point where we never talked, unless you were pontificating about some finer point of your insights into your psi abilities, or something like that. After all, you didn't need to talk to me, you'd just poke into my mind and see how I was feeling and what I was thinking. That's why I got Logan to teach me how to put up psi blocks. I got tired of it. I wanted to force you to have to actually communicate with me. And then, you didn't do it. The only reason you decided you needed to talk to me was when I stopped making love with you. And even then, you never wanted to know why. You just wanted service. On demand. That's not treating me like a man."

Jean had never thought of it that way.

"So you cut me off because I was being a bitch, to snap me out of it. I can understand---"

"No, Jean, you still don't understand. I'm not done yet. I'll be done soon, really. The other part of treating a man like a man is in not assuming that he is an unnecessary piece of gristle useful only for ferrying around his mindless dick. You have to admit you were guilty of that."

Jean thought about it.

"Well, you know what they say about men only wanting one thing. And I ws never that way with you! What do you care if I wanted to just use that rotten SOB Eddie Blake? And Tony, Jesus, women use him and he uses them, and they're both happy."

"This is the part you don't get, Jean. If you want someone to be attracted to you, even just for the, I don't know, twenty minutes it takes for a quickie, you have to show him that you're attracted to him. As a man, and a human being. Not just show interest in his reproductive organs because he happens to have them. I mean, even a groupie that someone like Eddie Blake meets, I don't know, at the Gunga Diner at closing time, she's coming onto him because there's something about him that turns her on. Nobody, not even a man like him wants to be Mr. You'll Do. And me, I was Mr. You'll Do for you for a long time."

"I am not like that! How can you say such cold, unfeeling things to me!"

"Because you've become a cold, unfeeling woman! You know what this notebook is? Evidence. Evidence that you forgot how to be anything else a long time ago. You can't seduce somebody for a quick dirty screw with nothing. If you don't have love, you at least have to have lust. And all you've got here is foolish pride. I'm Jean Grey. Why wouldn't you want me?"

"Logan did!"

"The only reason Logan took the bait is because he's over the moon about you. He was crawling the walls when he first came here, and we all thought he wasn't going to last and then you showed up. Jean, Logan changed his whole life for you. You made him believe that he could have a home, and a family, something I'll bet he gave up on about fifty years before either of us were born. He's got you on a pedestal, he thinks you really are The Great and Powerful Miss Jean Grey, and in his mind, he thinks about how if you were together it would be a great big love-in. Now, if you reduced him from Wolverine to Oh, Logan, and started taking him for granted and poking into his mind and telling him that you might as well get a dog, it would make less mess for you and not as much trouble, he'd cool off, fast. Which brings me to my next point. Napalm."

"Napalm? What does she have to do with any of this?"

"Lots. You're always writing, what is it about Liv and Mel that men like so much? Well, for starters, neither of them are an iceberg. Jean, if you were Liv or Mel, you'd be Trivelino or Melanie. You know, when I lost interest in you, I thought it was just me. That there was something wrong with me. I was sitting in the kitchen, thinking that I'm only 29 and my life as a man was over, and Napalm came in, in her men's OD underwear, from Logan's room, and she saw how desolate I looked, and she sat down, and talked to me. Not at me. Or around me. To me. We kidded around a little and she talked to me about my truck, and we talked shop a little, and she laughed and called me Scooter in a way that it wasn't insulting at all. She paid attention to me, and listened to what I had to say, and cared enough to stop and say something, at all. And you know what? I started noticing how well that threadbare tank top and folded over OD boxers fit her, and I warmed up to her, and she warmed up to me, and, all of the sudden I was shifting my legs around under the table so she wouldn't be able to see I was getting interested. I didn't do anything about it. She went back upstairs and I realised there was nothing wrong with me that not living with an Ice Queen wouldn't cure."

"Scott, that woman has killed enough men to fill up a Marine battalion!"

"Yes, but she didn't want to kill me. She treated me like a man, like a human being, she was nice, and friendly and warm, and she has T& A in spades. After years of floating around on your personal glacier, that was enough for me. There. I've said it."

"Said it? Oh, you've said it, alright! Well, I'm so glad you think I'm an Ice Queen , and a bitch, because I think you're a self-important, officious, boot-licking puritanical fucking jerk! You never used to be like that, either, Scott. You were always a very decent, moral, upstanding man, but you were adventurous and fun and daring. Then, when Charles made you Our Leader, you changed. You decided you had to be on a pedestal high above everybody. All of the sudden, Charles' word was God's word, and we had to have all the zippers on our costumes polished, and everything had to be ship-shape and yes sir. Which spilled over into our personal life, because you decided that all of the things we used to enjoy doing was "Teenage stuff" or "immature: or "undignified" and that's when our sex life started to go downhill. If sex isn't teenage or immature or undignified, it isn't much fun. And I had to peek into your mind, just to see if you were still in there, somewhere."

Whereas Scott had been able to tell Jean exactly what he thought of her in a calm, quiet way that just bordered on sarcasm, Jean started to get mad.

"So I'm an iceberg? A cold unfeeling woman? Who wouldn't be, living with you? Don't try to shift all the blame onto me! You never delegate your authority, but when it comes to shifting the blame, well, that's something we're all expected to share! What the fuck are you smiling about?"

"I didn't think you had it in you, anymore."

"What?"

"Fire."

"Aren't you going to get angry at me, for what I'm saying?"

"No. Because I know it's all true. At least I'll admit to my mistakes."

"Oh Christ! Here we go! Time for Scott Summers, Holy Martyr! You selfish prick, you do not get to be poor wounded Scott, the brave martyr! Walking around having everyone feel sorry for you! He's such a saint and Jean's such a whore, how could she do this to him. Bullshit! We are all grown-ups, here, Scott, and this is the 20th century, not the 13th! You know who the martyr is, here? Me! I'm the one who cries all night and sleeps in the gym! I tried to talk to you. Many times. You wouldn't listen to me! You didn't care! I'm the one who tried anything, everything to get you to notice that you're a man and I'm a woman and we are not brother and sister, and I'm the one who got rejected, night after night until I had myself convinced I might as well turn the stove on and stick my head in it, because my life was over. I'm the wounded one here, Scott, I'm the martyr, and you're the bad guy, you selfish, prudish, puritanical fucking asshole!"

"I'm the bad guy? Me? You seduced Logan, and I'm the bad guy? You know what, Jean? Fuck you!"

Now it was Jean's turn to look shocked.

Scott had dropped the F-bomb.

"Scott, did you just say "fuck" ?"

Then, before her wondering eyes, Scott completely exploded in a screaming, spitting, rage, raving and pacing the floor and jabbing his finger in her face

"No, I just said fuck you! And let me say it again! Fuck you, you dirty fucking whore! If you want to go from Jean the Ice Queen to Jean the Whore of Humanity, you go right ahead, but leave me out of it! And you should have left Logan out of it, too. The poor son-of-a-bitch didn't have a chance, did he? I can see it in his face. Maybe we weren't best buddies but we are friends! We used to sit in the kitchen and have a beer, or watch a movie in the TV room, sometimes, but he left here because he can't even look at me anymore! You know why? Because, unlike you, Logan's got some decency and some honour and he's ashamed of what he's done! Oh I'd like to be mad at him, but the man's memory is like a Swiss cheese, he's just this side of being an animal and he carries a helluva torch for you. But you knew that when you took the poor bastard to the drive-in wearing your two-dollar whore outfit! Poor old Wolvie never had a chance, did he? And you, you thought you had it made, didn't you? Then he had an attack of conscience, because of the aforementioned decency and honour, and told you to peddle it elsewhere! That poor man never had a goddamn thing in his miserable fucked-up life but pain and suffering and he found a home, here, probably the first place he really had a home since 1900 or so, and you took it from him, just so you could get some head! And now you come, crawling back to me, and I'm supposed to want you? Fat chance! Fuck you!"

Jean slapped him in the face so hard it knocked his visor off and she had to duck.

He shut his eyes, and put it back on.

"It was your fault!" she screamed.

Scott started pulling on his clothes as he continued his raging.

"My fault? My fault! Don't you listen? Ever? It was your fault, too, you snooty free-wheeling bitch! And don't you fucking slap me again, goddamnit! I'm a man, goddamnit! A man! And you reduced me to a snivelling, quivering nervous wreck of a pile of shit! I'm not going to let you slap me around, too! You had your fun, Miss Great and Powerful Jean Grey, and now I'm going to have mine! The next woman, the very next woman who shows any interest in me, who treats me like I am a man, who shows me a littler kindness, a little human fucking feeling, I'm going to give her what you want! I'm going to fuck her right out of her shoes, and I don't care what you think about it! As for you, my little glacier, I wouldn't touch you with the tip of the head of my dick if you had the last cooze on Earth!"

Scott delivered that last shot with the door open, loud enough for oh, the entire mansion to hear everything he said, then slammed the door and left.

Jean sat down on the couch.

"Unmask, indeed."

She got dressed, and, very coolly, left their room to start the day like nothing had happened at all.

**II: Scott**

Scott Summers tried, and tried.

But he found he couldn't understand Napalm.

For all he had been through in his life, Scott Summers was a calm, reasonable, well-adjusted man who couldn't even imagine the kind of hell that was visited on a deeply disturbed and instinctually violent alcoholic genius struggling to single-handedly bring the light of justice into every foul, slimy, and hereforeto ignored corner of New York City at the same time as she limped and staggered out of a childhood and adolescence that was like a collaboration between Burroughs, Dickens, and maybe Jim Thompson or James M. Cain.

He had no idea how a man like the Comedian could make anyone's life better, or how any woman could want to be with such a man, but Napalm was Jean's friend, she was Logan's friend, she was a fellow mask and over the years she had become his friend, as well.

Napalm lived every day with what Jean told him was a truly horrifying amount of emotional and physical pain, so some Wednesdays were better than others.

Generally you'd get Napalm in the wee hours as Tuesday passed into Wednesday, a little drunk, a little tired, a little worse for wear, but generally sunny and unharmed and happy to be in her sanctuary, beaming her thousand-watt grin at anyone who could see it.

For all her well-deserved reputation as a violent, brutal, wildly degenerate alcoholic with a wickedly sardonic sense of humor and hair-trigger temper, Napalm's good side was as good as gold; a sunny red-haired tomboy in Levis and Keds, with two very long ponytails on either side of her head.

Invariably, Napalm always came in through the kitchen door, and, invariably, Scott was at the kitchen table at three in the morning; he frequently suffered from insomnia.

Sometimes she'd come downstairs in the middle of the night in her underwear, fresh out of Logan's bed, looking to have a beer or a snack and there Scott would be.

That was the worst.

For one thing, the undershirts she wore weren't sized for a woman; she always looked like she was ready to burst out of them.

For another, when she reached up to get something from the cabinet or to stretch the tank top rode up and he could see where she had the OD boxers folded down around her hips, and she was also practically hanging out of the bottom, as well.

It wasn't even Wednesday, it was Thursday, Liv was staying over because her car wouldn't start, and she figured she'd just fix it in the morning.

She slept in Logan's room, but came down for a midnight snack.

"Hiya, Cyke. Gettin' cold out there."

It was cold in the kitchen.

Not only were her breasts huge, so were her nipples; when they got hard they looked like gumdrops, poking through the ribbing of her often worn, old undershirts.

"Sure is. But it's only April, yet."

"Yeah, but this is pretty cold for April. I mean there's some flakes in the air. Mind if I sit down?"

Actually, Scott did mind.

Napalm made him nervous.

There was something overwhelmingly and elementally female and seductive about her, even as she sat there in her men's military underwear, with motor oil under her blunt-cut fingernails.

Liv had a way of talking to every man she met in this staccato direct way, and if she liked you, whether or not she intended to do anything about it, she hung herself over the chairs she sat in as if to say, don't mind my being in drag, my man, I wouldn't mind fucking your brains out and you know I could.

He'd come down to the kitchen one night as Tuesday became early Wednesday morning and walked in on Logan doing it to her on the kitchen table.

Right on the table.

He had just his pants on but she was naked, naked and wrapped around him, but still mostly covered by her long, red Lady Godiva hair.

It was an image burned onto Scott's retinas.

Jean had gone to college and had other boyfriends, but Scott never left the Institute; he'd never been with any girl other than Jean.

The very idea of touching Napalm horrified him and fascinated him at the same time.

She was just the kind of chick that was mad, bad and dangerous to know that a man like him would never want, and that was where the fascination lay.

He'd never been with a bad girl.

"Go ahead. I could use the company."

"Jesus, you look like hell, there, Scooter pie. You have a rough day?"

"I've had a rough couple of months. And these past few days, they've been Hell on Earth."

"Well, seein' as how Logan got in the wind in a hurry, I imagine somethin'; real bad has happened. Maybe I can help."

Napalm pulled her knapsack out from under the table , and pulled out a little plastic box, in which there were what looked like a bunch of homemade teabags and envelopes, in separate sections.

She took a few of the teabags out and handed them to Scott.

"Here. Try this. It's herbal tea. An old family recipe from my old Irish granny, and her old Irish granny, in perpetuity. I grow the herbs in my herb garden an' make it myself. Bruce drinks it when he can't sleep, and if it works on him, it'll work on anybody."

"What's in it?" Scott asked.

"Chamomile, valerian, liquorice root, a little ginger, and some lemongrass and spearmint, just for taste. Try it. It won't solve your problems, but it might make you feel a little better so you can at leats get some sleep. If it works, I'll whip up a batch for you. Lemme go put the kettle on. We'll have a cuppa tea."

It was good tea, relaxing, and before Scott knew it he was spilling his guts.

"Jean had an an affair with Logan."

Liv looked surprised.

"Whoa there, man. Affair, that's a big word. A little screwing between friends does not constitute an affair."

"I know that. But 'affair' sounds a lot better than 'Jean set out, methodically and in cold blood to find some poor fool to service her, and Logan took the bait, poor bastard.' I can't forgive her. She set out to seduce him. I know it takes two to tango, but she knew how he carried a torch for her, and she took advantage of that, and made me look like an idiot, and broke his heart. She even had a go at your partner. He didn't take the bait, though, good for all of us. By this time I must be the laughingstock of the whole superhero community. How could she do this to me?"

"Hey, Cyke, don't take it so hard. Just because she did the dirty deed with another man, it doesn't mean she doesn't love you. Lemme level with youse, Scott. I never expected I'd fall in love with a man, and I sure as fuck never expected a man to fall in love with me. Logan and I are friends, and it's blood between us, and that was more than I ever thought I'd have. But I love Eddie, the Devil take me for it, but I do, and I can tell you right now, I ain't never gonna feel that way about nobody else. And he loves me and don't you think he doesn't. But, he has Wednesdays with Sophie and I have Wednesdays with Logan, and when he sneaks off to LA to go see Sally, I sneak off to spend a little quality time with Tony Stark. And neither of us is willing to give up screwing mask groupies, here and there. It was just one of those things. Ships that pass in the night. You know, big fella, Jean doesn't sleep much, either."

"She doesn't?"

"Nope. She tells me alla time how she never can get to sleep."

Scott was blushing again.

"Jesus, Cyke, don't get all sqidgy about it! It's only natural. Take it from me, I gotta degree in evolutionary biology. From ol' Mom Nature's standpoint, all of us, from mice to men, are only on this planet to do a few things. We have to eat, so we can have enough energy to move around and attract a mate, and then do some fucking, and produce offspring, and then, when we get too old to eat, move and fuck, we're to die to make room for our young to take over where we left off. And it's worse for mutants, because they have a greater biological imperative to spread their DNA. Don't sweat it, my friend. It's science. Just do what comes naturally."

"I can't."

"Why not? You need a doctor?"

"No, I mean…well, I did…but I don't want to. I'm furious at her!"

"Well, then, have a fight. Scream. Throw shit. Lose your cool. It'll do ya good. Then, on the next night you got free, take Jean to the drive-in. Or go to the motel up on the interstate. Or to the city."

"Liv, you didn't tell her she should sleep with some other guy, did you?"

"No. Certainly not Eddie! I was pretty goddamn mad at her when she took a shot at Eddie. I told her she should get aggressive with you."

"I wouldn't touch her with a ten foot pole."

"Yeah, I can see why. And don';t worry about Logan. He had Jean up on a pedestal, way in the sky. Now that he sees she's only human, just like him, well, he hadda see it sometime, yunno? He'll be back. Don't worry."

"I don't know, Liv. I just don't know anything, anymore. All I know is, you're a good woman, no matter what anybody says. You know how to treat a man like a man. You make me feel like a man, Liv. Let me return the favour. Make you feel like a woman."

Liv looked at him like he had ten heads, and then, she laughed her Jack Napier laugh.

"Why, Scott Summers, you got the Devil in you tonight! Lookin' to give the dog a bone? It just goes to show you, it's always the quiet ones."

"I came down here, once, and I saw you and Logan…getting it on, right on this table. I left, right away, but, some things, a man doesn't forget."

Now this was an opportunity.

Liv thought that it would be some kind of fun to corrupt the hell out of a nice, lily-white sheep like Cyke.

Not only that, his confidence was in the toilet, he really needed somebody to make him feel like he was a man, again.

Yeah, a selfless act of charity.

She considered her and Eddie's rules.

Cyke did not work closely with Eddie. He was not related to Eddie. And they were not under Eddie's roof.

Then she asked herself the usual question.

If I told Eddie I fucked this guy, would he laugh his ass off?

Most certainly.

She laughed, and it was the most evil, lustful, maniacal laugh Scott ever heard come out of a woman.

"Listen, Scooter Pie, you'd better think twice. You had better be the man you're tellin' me you are, because, I'll burn your ass down, motherfucker. I mean it. If you want me, you get me. And if you can't take it, that's tough. I'll fuck you right outa your shoes, I'll fuck you right outa your mind, I'll fuck you till I've drained every last drop of spunk outa your balls. I'll grab you by your hair and hold your head down. I'll rattle your bones, my man. You had better be ready for me."

Scott was actually scared.

He wondered if he looked scared.

Scared, but god damn, was he horny.

He got up from behind the table, no, he pushed the table away, he kicked his chair over.

"Suits me, baby. I'll fuck you like Superman."

Did I really say that?

Yes, I did.

"You will, huh?"

"You bet your sweet ass."

Napalm was torn.

On one hand, she knew that this was the absolute 100 per cent wrong thing to do, and that it would fuck her up with Jean, and maybe with Logan, and certainly Scooter Pie would feel guilty as sin about three seconds after he shot his wad.

Scooter Pie.

He did look pretty good, just then, on the other hand, this promised to be some kind of hot, dirty, nasty kind of action, and at this hour of the night, that was always what Napalm was looking for.

Just about any man who was interested looked good to her on a cold night at three in the morning when she couldn't sleep and was horny as a junkyard dog under a full moon.

But Scooter, in this his first moment in his long life of being a good boy of finally being bad?

That was some hot shit.

She wished she was still a habitual drunk; she could always have blamed it on the booze.

But wait a minute?

What if he got hung up on her.

That wouldn't be good.

And if he was just about to have the dirtiest, nastiest, porno movie hubba-hubba hump-a-thon moment of his whole boring, do it on Sunday with my socks on life, then she shouldn't be the one he shared it with.

"Hey there, Scooter Pie, I'd love to say yes to you, but, there's too may ways that could go wrong. All wrong. I think, you know, I think I'm gonna go out to the car, put my coveralls on, see if I can't get it started, again. It's parked under a light pole, I can see well enough. Why don't you so see if your old lady is still awake? Better yet, wake her up"

Liv got up and zoomed out into the cold, before she could think better of it.

***

Her car was dead as a doornail, so she put on some clothes she kept in it, and pressed the green button on the bracelet Dr. Manhattan had given her when they started working together.

It was just a remote that activated a buzzer, one in his lab and one in his apartment, letting him know she wanted to be teleported to work.

Jon had told her it was so she could miss the traffic, but she figured it was more like in case of emergency, and when she first started working for Jon, it was every day an emergency.

She pushed the button again, and again, and again.

"C'mon, Jon, c'mon, c'mon, I'm freezin' my ass off!"

And then, in a _whoooooooshhhh!!!!_ and a flash of blue light, she was in the living room of Jon's nice, warm apartment in New York.

He looked flustered.

She knew him well enough to know what flustered looked like.

"Were you busy?" Liv asked.

"Yes, we were!" Laurie yelled, from the bedroom.

"Sorry, man. But my car died out there in the snow."

"It's OK. And it's late. You can come in late, tomorrow."

Jon went back to bed, and Naplam took the subway, and came out a block from Eddie's building.

It was precisely three-thirty when she got into bed beside him.

"I thought you was stayin' in Westchester."

"I couldn't."

"Why the fuck not?"

"Awww, Scooter made a pass at me. And I wanted to do the right thing, so I split and left him and his big ideas to Jean."

Eddie laughed.

He laughed until he was wheezing, and the whole bed was shaking.

Liv put the light on.

"What the fuck is so fuckin' funny, you rotten old bastard?"

"The idea of you with fuckin' Scooter! Fuckin' Scooter, Jesus Christ! Kid, you woulda killed him! Fuckin' murdered the poor bastard! You an' Scooter. Shit, I can't breathe!"

"Yeah, well, fuckin' yuk it up. I'm gonna try and get some sleep."

"Fuck you, you are. You didn't come here to get some sleep. You coulda gone home and got some sleep."

"Eddie, you're the greatest."

"Yeah, kid. You ain't so bad yourself. But you're frozen stiff. C'mere, lemme thaw yer ass out."

Briefly, the Comedian was furious at Scooter, because of him she ended up turned out into what was probably the last cold night of the year, but he had more important things to attend to.

"Oooo, Eddie, oooo, oooo…"

Yeah, fuck you, Scooter.

You woulda burned alive.

***

Scott sat down, he finished his tea, and then, a look of wickedness that seemed odd an alien across his face overspread his features, and he went upstairs.

***

Jean woke up when Scott turned the lights on in the main room, at least she assumed it was Scott.

It was him, alright, but he had the strangest look on his face.

"Scott? What the hell is going on? Do you know what time it is?"

He snapped the TV off.

"Yeah. I do. It's time for me to take you down a peg or two."

"What? Are you drunk again, or something?"

"No. No, I'm stone cold sober. I just had some tea with Liv, and that was all I had, and it suddenly came to me, what you've been looking for. Somebody to take you down a peg or two. Knock you off that pedestal you're stranded on. And what would be better, than to dress like a cheap, dirty whore, and get fucked like one by some anonymous mask who hardly knows you and doesn't care if you live or die? That should do the trick."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about getting down, Jean. Down and dirty, like they say. That's what both of us need. I need to stop being the Fearless Leader, and you need to stop being The Great and Powerful Miss Jean Grey, and I can only think of one way we can do that. Birds do it. Bees do it. It's just biology, baby. Let's go with it."

Scott unzipped his jeans, and pulled his dick, which was like a rock, out of his shorts, and wagged it at her.

"Well? It's not gonna suck itself?"

***

On his way back to his own rooms, Kurt passed by Scott and Jean's rooms, and, through the half open door, he caught a glimpse of them, on the floor, not even the bedroom floor, on the floor, not even on the carpet, but on the floor, naked and all wrapped around each other, and Fearless Leader was quite obviously nailing Miss Jean Grey to said floor.

And the dialogue wasn't suitable for the kinds of movies he liked to watch.

In fact, he was quite surprised that Scott even said those kinds of words.

Kurt averted his eyes, immediately, and ever so quietly, he closed their door.

"Mein Gott." He chuckled to himself.

"I did not see zat. I did not see zat at all." he decided, and continued on his way to bed.

***

Scott rolled over onto his back on the floor, panting.

Under his glasses, his eyes were burning from the sweat that had fallen into them, and his ears were burning from the steady stream of cursing, dirty talk, and generally foul and filthy language that poured from his mouth as he, well, screwed the shit out of Jean on the floor.

Unbelivable.

The way she got down on her knees for him; like she'd just been waiting for him to make her do it.

Well, he'd never had to make her do it.

He chewed on his lower lip; he could still taste her on it, and just thinking about that made him wish he could do it all, do everything, all over again.

Jean rolled over and put her head on his chest.

"Oh, Scott, that was so amazing. I didn't know you had it in you." She said.

He put his arms around her.

She wasn't cold, now.

That was it? That was the whole problem? They almost destroyed each other, almost destroyed their love, shook the foundations of Xavier's dreams because of a little head and some dirty talk?

He almost wanted to laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"Us, Jean. We are."

***

The summer passed slowly and lazily, and, things were much better between Scott and Jean.

He divided himself fairly between his work and his girlfriend, he overcame his despair and became a better leader for it.

As for their love life, Scott was happy to have one, again. Maybe he wasn't at it every night, and he really wasn't the dirty type, but it was like it had been, years ago, between him and Jean. They were together again, and they were happy.

Both of them.

Somewhere in the beginning of August, Logan and Mel returned.

Good news all around.

It turned out Mel's father was alive and well, and they had been happily reunited, and Old Black Tom, he was alive, well, mean as a cobra with a toothache and had moved a woman into his old cabin with him, a French-Canadian mutant who was 35 years old to his 214.

Runs in the family.

Scott didn't talk to Logan about the incident that precipitated his departure, and things went back to normal between them.

Logan was glad to be home, everyone was glad to see him.

Things were going well with Jean.

God was in his Heaven, and all was right with Cyclops' world.

**II: Jean**

Jean knew she was in trouble even before Logan got back, because she had to face some hard, cold facts.

That night that she and Scott spent getting after it on their living room floor was hands down the best she ever had.

The kind of thing that Napalm referred to as hot, dirty, nasty action, which she averred was the best kind.

After that night, she and Scott resumed their friendship, their love, and their sex life, and it wasn't that Scott wasn't a good lover.

He was tender and gentle in the beginning and he had more than enough stamina to get to the end, and be powerful and masculine, and they took a renewed delight in each other after so long a dry spell.

Scott loosened up, and they were having the best possible love life they could.

It was satisfying.

Very satisfying.

So why was she still craving hot, dirty, nasty action?

Jean came to the realisation that she loved Scott, very deeply, as a friend, as a man, and as a lover, but there was something she needed that he couldn't give her.

It was what he loved about her that, even in his most passionate moments, he didn't have.

Fire.

Jean re-read her notebook, and knew it for the crock of shit it was. She didn't go after any man. She went after men who had fire.

You could ask a whole gaggle of well-ravished women if the great Tony Stark had fire. He may have known how to control it like a laser beam, but you could see the sparks in his devilish, twinkling eye and his in like Flynn grin.

As for Eddie Blake, he was made of fire, hellfire, just like Napalm was. The man boiled and fulminated with his barely concealed rage, and when he let it out, he erupted in calculated brutality, but he was what he was, a fiery Irishman with a blazing temper, and every woman who lay down with him got up smiling from the flames.

And then, there was Logan.

Fire?

Logan burned with the heat of a thousand dying suns in supernova.

Not just for her; that was just the way he was.

They had a conversation, two conversations at the same time, shortly after he returned.

One spoken, and the other unspoken.

"Hey, Jeannie, didja have a good summer."

_Without me?_

"Yes, I did. Scott and I managed to work things out, and everything's going well for us now."

_Well, but not quite good enough._

"That's good. It'll make my life a lot easier, that's for sure."

_So, you still need me?_

"I'm sorry I ever dragged you into this, Logan. I made a mistake."

_I made a mistake, alright. And I want to make it again._

"That's alright, darlin'. These things, they happen."

_Hopefully, they'll happen again._

"I guess they do. Even in the best of families. I have some work to do, getting things ready for the start of classes, so I think I'll go, now."

_Take me, Logan. Take me, now. Throw me on the desk , slice off my clothes, and fuck me, screw me into the floor, I need Scott, but I need you, too._

"Okay. Be seein' you, darlin'."

_I can smell how much you want me. Jeannie, darlin', I wanna fuck you so bad I can taste you. I got what you need and I wanna give it to you, over an' over an' over again._

Jean left.

No point in dragging this out.

Like Logan had said, before he left, she and Scott and Mel Reinhardt and him were all going to have to sit down together and discuss things like rational adults.

She marched right over to Scott's office, to tell him it was about time they all had their little talk, and walked right in.

It was a bizarre tableau.

There was a white ermine cape spread out across Scott's desk.

Spread out over that white ermine cape, still wearing her white corset and boots, albeit half unlaced and disordered, was the White Queen, Emma Frost.

Scott was standing directly behind her; he had his hands on her hips and his undershirt on, and under the desk, she could see his pants down around his ankles.

Emma's mouth was set in a perfect "O" of shock and dismay, and Scott looked for all the world like a little boy whose mother caught him with his hands in the cookie jar.

That was close enough to the situation at hand.

"Jean, I can explain. It's like, uh, therapy."

"Therapy! What kind of therapy?"

"Sex therapy." Emma said, coolly.

"No, I believe it's called, Emma you're a fucking whore, and you've been taking advantage of my big, dumb Scooter Pie at a time when his mind is as malleable as mush. Which is not to say I'm leaving you off the hook, Scooter Pie. Therapy, my ass! Now, here's what's going to happen. I was going to be patient and delicate about it, but, fuck that noise. Scott, you and I are going to have an open relationship. I am going to feel free to see other people, well, one other person, namely Logan. It isn't that you're not good enough, it's just that, well I need _therapy_, too. As for you, if you, for some unknown reason want to continue to stick your dick in this fucking whore who gets passed around every Superhero Summit on a Lazy Susan, you go right ahead. But don't do it where we live, and for God's sake, use a rubber. Now, if you'll excuse me for interrupting, I'm going to do the decent thing, and go rent a room at the motel up on the interstate."

"Jean—"

"Oh, save it, Scott. Welcome to the 20th century already in progress, but do yourself a favour, get a nice girl. Someone who's never tried to kill you. I'll see you tomorrow. Tonight, don't wait up."

Jean closed the door, and opened it again.

"One more thing, Emma. If you do anything, in any way, shape or form to hurt him, or if I ever even sense that you've been within a mile of my home, I will make your head explode like an over-ripe pumpkin. Phoenix trumps White Queen, anytime."

"Is that all you have to say to me, Jean?" Emma Frost asked.

"Let me see. There's whore, bitch, slut, fucking dirty whore, lousy no-good Hellfire Club murderous cunt, and may I add that you're an awful dresser and I hope Scooter never figures out that you bought your tits. Ooops. I misspoke myself. Have a nice time, Scott."

Jean left Scott's office, and slammed the door.

"You mean you're just going to let her talk to me like that, Scott?"

"Well, I…I…I…"

"You spineless worm!"

"Emma, please!"

"Don't give me that bullshit! I'm leaving, and I'm not coming back!"

"Emma, you can't!"

"Watch me!"

Jean left them to sort it out between the two of them, and left the school.

She got in her car, and drove up to the motel on the interstate, parked her car by room 14, and rented it until noon the next day.

She went in, sat down on the bed, put the TV on, and called Napalm's office at NYU

"It's your nickel."

"Napalm? It's Jean. Would it bother you if I was on Logan's dance card with you? Scott and I have decided to have an open relationship."

"Who, me? Shit, Jean, it's blood between Logan and I, and we're good friends, but all I got an interest in is Wednesday. Glad to hear you and Scooter have come to your senses." Liv replied.

"Thanks. I'll talk to you later."

After she hung up with Liv, she called Mel Reinhardt's room, and asked her the same question.

"I can't say I didn't see that comin'. You love him?"

"Not the way you do, but, yes."

"You won't do anything to hurt him?"

"Of course not."

"Does this have anything to do with Emma Frost running across the lawn yelling 'Fuck you, Scooter Pie?'"

"A lot, actually."

Mel laughed.

"Well, I guess he brought it on himself."

"Oh, she'll be back. Now that she has her claws in poor dopey Scott, she won't be letting go anytime soon."

"So, how does Monday sound to you?"

"Why Monday?"

"Because, I got my powers completely under control, and my Gypsy, he's a mutant, too. I'm gonna go out to Frisco to see him, and I got no classes on Mondays this semester. I figure I'll fly out on Sunday, come home Tuesday morning for class Tuesday afternoon."

"And Logan knows about this?"

"Well, yeah. He was the first one I talked to."

"Is today Monday?"

"Yes."

"Then Monday works for me."

After Jean got off the phone with Mel, she called Logan's office.

The line was busy.

She waited a while and called back.

"H'lo?"

"Guess who?"

"Jeannie? What the hell's goin' on? I just talked to Napalm, and Mel was in here, tellin' me as how I wasn't gonna hafta be alone on Mondays while she was in Frisco? Is this some kinda sick joke?"

"No. It isn't. I'm thirty years old, Logan, and that may not be old for a mutant, but it's old enough for me to decide that life is too short not to have what you want. And I want you. I'm at the motel up on the interstate, in Room 14. I have the room all night. I'm waiting for you."

"You sure we're square with Cyke?"

"We sure as fuck are. You gotta window in your office, don't you."

"Yeah. I closed the blind when he ran out after her, though, holdin' up his pants. I'm glad the kids aren't here. Poor Cyke, Jesus Christ."

Silence on the line.

"Logan? Are you coming?"

"I'll be there before you know it, darlin'."

"Good."

_(Author's Note: My, oh my, poor Scooter Pie! How did Emma get her hooks into him? And, once he gets his pants buttoned and he sees Logan about to head off to that rendezvous at the motel up on the Interstate, will he try to stop him? And didn't I mention Sabretooth, before? You'll be seeing him one fine Wednesday, and if you read Moonlight and Adamantium, you'll know why. So, will Jean and Logan finally find bliss, or is Scott going to try and cut them off at the pass? Boy, those suds sure are flying, now. The last thing we need is Vic Creed throwing his hat into the ring. Will Logan end up with more than soap in his claws? And Eddie Blake hasn't killed anybody in this story, yet, isn't that unusual? And just what does the White Queen have up her satin sleeve? Find out in the next exciting chapter, same X-Time, same X-Channel!)_


	8. Fire

**Chapter Eight: Fire**

**X-Institute, The Same Day**

**I: Scott**

Standing in front of the school in his boxers and undershirt, with his pants around his ankles, one phrase echoed through Scott Summers' mind.

Motel up on the interstate.

Wait a minute, Scooter. Jean just walked in on you in the act of doing it to Emma Frost.

You actually, physically had your dick in her, and Jean saw you. What right do you have to tell her not to sleep with Logan?

None.

Speak of the devil, Logan came running out of the school, as Napalm liked to say, like his ass was on fire and his head was catching, making a beeline for his motorcycle.

"Hey!" Scott yelled.

Logan stopped in his tracks.

"Where are you going?"

Logan put his hand on the back of his head and puffed on his cigar.

"Awww, shit." He said.

"Look, before we all just do…whatever, I think we need to talk. You and me and Jean and Emma and Mel. Like…rational adults."

Logan gave him an incredulous look.

"Did Jeannie catch you in the act, with the White Queen, Scott?"

"Yep."

"Didja have it in her?"

"Yep."

"You're in a shitload of trouble, bub."

"I know."

"Jus' what the fuck were you thinkin'?"

"Logan, trust me. You don't know what Jean is really like. Compared to Jean, Emma Frost is an Earth Mother. Sure, you'll go up there to that motel, and you and her, you'll have a real hot time, and maybe for awhile, everything will be great and grand and groovy. But then she'll start taking your for granted. Treating you like a child. Poking around in your mind like it's her panty drawer. Comparing you to me. That'll cool you off pretty good. She's not all she's cracked up to be, believe me. The woman's a real iceberg."

Logan levelled a cold look at him, a look of distaste, like a slug had just crawled its slimy way across his face.

"So I guess Emma Frost is a fuckin' fountain of human kindness. Between her legs, maybe. One side, bub. Comin' through."

Scott blocked Logan's way again, and the cold looked turned angry, like he was about five seconds from _snikt_!

"Hey! What the fuck happened to you not wanting to build your happiness over my misery?" Scott demanded.

"If you're fuckin' Emma Frost, you ain't miserable."

"Goddamnit, Logan, if you take one more step, I will blast your hairy ass all the way to Hell!"

_**SNIKT!**_

"I'd like to see you fuckin' try it…_Scooter_."

Logan still had his claws out, and he beckoned to Scott with them.

"So, you want to fight? Fine, if we have to fight for Jean, I'll do it!"

Logan poked a claw against Scott's chest.

"Now you wanna fight for Jeannie? Now you listen to me, Summers. I tried to do the right thing. I gave you a chance to do the right thing. And you know what you did? Emma Frost. The White Queen of the Hellfire Club. Who has tried to kill all of us, you included, on multiple occasions. I have lived here with you for seven fuckin' years, seven fuckin' years, and I seen the way you treat Jeannie, and it ain't never been good. You put her last. Dead last. People, if you can call 'em that, who you never met, from another fuckin' planet, they've meant more to you than Jeannie. If she's a fuckin' iceberg to you, then you deserve it, bub. And I left here and gave you a chance to make it up to her, to show her what kind of man ya really were, and ya did that, din'cha? Yah sowed her you're the kind of man who'll tell her a whole buncha pretty lies and then slink off to go slip it to Little Miss Cooze 1974. Now, there's a broken-hearted woman up waitin' for me in that motel up on the interstate, a woman who put her heart and her soul into lovin' a man who don't think enough of her that if he's gonna fuck the fastest floozie who ever put on a mask, ta do it someplace in secret. And I'm gonna go up there, and I'm gonna try and clean up the mess you madea her heart. If you wanna stop me, you'll hafta kill me, so you take your best fuckin' shot."

Logan turned on his heel and walked towards his motorcycle.

Scott didn't impede him, further.

A broken man, he appropriated a case of beer from Logan's stash in the basement, and locked himself in his bedroom, and resigned himself to his fate.

And when he was drunk enough, he made a desperate phone call.

"Emma…Emma, I know you're there. Answer the phone…Emma?"

"Hello, Scott." she said, sounding annoyed.

He didn't say anything else, just started to cry.

**II: Logan**

He drove like a maniac, all the way to that motel on the interstate.

Monday.

Monday was going to be his new favourite day of the week.

Logan had heard Cyke screaming inside his office, and he had seen the White Queen running across the lawn.

He knew that Jean loved Cyke, and that she felt about him pretty much the way he and Napalm felt about each other.

And he knew that these Mondays wouldn't last long.

Cyke would have a story, Jean would buy it, she'd go back to him for a little while, maybe a long while.

But he didn't care.

Because Monday came at the beginning of every week, and as long as it did, there would always be a chance of Jeannie.

And if that was all he could get, it was more than he had before, and goddamn it all, he was going to take it.

It was like he flew over the road, and when he was walking towards the door of Room 14, he couldn't feel the ground underneath his boots.

He tried to door and it was open, and Logan didn't just open it, he slammed that door open.

Even if he didn't fill the doorway to the top, he was bracketed by it from shoulder to shoulder.

Jeannie pulled the bedsheets up to her neck; she wasn't just waiting for him, she was in bed, waiting for him.

Logan slammed the door behind him, locked it, chained it, bolted it.

He put his hat on the dresser and kicked his boots into the corner, took off his undershirt and tossed it wherever, unbuckled belt and unzipped his Levis and stepped out of them, and the hand he wasn't using to pull back the blankets, he used to tear the phone out of the wall.

"I don't want nobody to bother us, Jeannie, darlin'." He told her

Told her as Jean was pulling him into her arms, seeking his lips with hers.

"I don't either. Jesus, Logan, I've wanted this since the first time I ever saw you."

"Me too, darlin'."

The blankets were in his way, he growled and tore them off the bed.

"Logan, I need you, I need…more." She told him.

"You own me, Jeannie. I told you that, before."

Jean thought it for a second about walking into his office and seeing Melanie Reinhardt spread across the desk with Logan behind her, his hands on her hips, both of them moaning and groaning, oblivious to everything except their own obvious pleasure.

She rolled over onto her belly, got up on all fours and looked over her shoulder at him, almost shyly.

Logan chuckled.

"Is that the way you like it, Jeannie?" he laughed.

"I never did it this way. But I always wanted to try."

"Whatever you want, darlin'." He told her.

She felt him move between her legs and opened them a little wider as Logan ran his tongue from the small of her back all the way up to her neck.

Jean shuddered, and moaned.

He kissed her on the back of her neck.

"Mmmm, darlin', you're so damn hot. Poor baby. The way poor ol' Scooter fucks you, you might as well not get any at all. But I'm gonna give you everythin' you want, Jeannie. Like you never had it before. Now, put your head down a little further. Good girl. Now, arch your back for me, darlin'."

Jean did what he said and she could feel the hair on his muscular thighs tickling her, and the heavy heat of his cock pressing between them.

She hoped he wasn't going to tease her, but he wasn't; he guided his cock into her with a long, slow, deep thrust.

"Ohhh, Jeannie, oh my sweet little darlin', that feels so goddamn good…"

Jean moaned again; it sure did.

"Oooo, it does, Logan, it really does! Fuck me, oh, Logan, please, fuck me like you mean it!" She heard herself gasp.

Napalm was right, Logan was the best at what he did and it was very, very nice.

He was so goddamn big, so hard, so hot, so…

So much Logan.

He kept rotating his hips around , thrusting into her hard and fast until he found it, that spot Jean was sure that every woman in the world but her had, but Logan found it, with his big, thick cock, oh he found it, yes he did, found it over and over and over again with every sweet, sweet stroke.

Jean was barely aware that she was making a low sound like some kind of wild animal, she was pushing back against him, groaning and keening, her eyes lolling around in her head.

She was peeling herself off the ceiling awash in the most intense orgasm she'd ever had, limp as an empty dress when Logan rolled her onto her back, and got on top of her.

She was surprised she was looking right into his eyes.

Scott and her boyfriend in college were both much taller than she; she's never been able to look a man in the eyes when he was on top of her, making love to her.

"Logan, oh God, Logan, I never felt anything like that, never in my whole life…"

He kissed her, putting one arm under her to pull her closer as Jean wound her arms and her legs around him.

"That's good, darlin'. But I wanna see your face, now, while I'm lovin' you, Red. I wanna remember it when I'm old and grey."

She put her arms and her legs around him.

"Make love to me, Logan. Fill me up." She murmured.

"Darlin', things ain't never going back the way they were. Never!"

His pleasure fell over her like a cloud, she slipped into his mind and found she was the only thing on it and slipped out again, thinking he couldn't make her burn again so soon, but she caught both his rhythm and his fire, sorry she clawed his back, but it was too much, too much, too…

…

"Never, Logan! Never, never, never… NEVER!"

The glass in every window, in every mirror, in every room of the motel didn't so much shatter as vaporise, seemingly into thin air.

People's glasses, women's compacts, shaving mirrors, dishes and cups and glasses and mugs, the windshields and headlights of cars in the parking lot, everything, everything that was made of glass, ionized in a silvery spray before it was completely gone, just like it had never been there.

And Logan growled, deep in his throat, thrusting into her faster and she could feel him getting harder and harder until he just broke, like a dam, like the camel's back, and he came, and came again, crying out.

"Ah, ah, ah…Jeannie, I love you! I love you!"

Then he was quiet, and she was quiet, and the room was quiet.

Jean held onto him, felt his weight on her, heard his ragged breaths in her ears, and she wished she could have said she loved him too.

"I know you do. I need you to love me. You're my best friend in the whole world. The only person who really understands me. I know that sounds corny, but it's true. I'll always need you to love me, Logan. No matter what." She told him.

She let him go, and he rolled over onto his back, and Jean curled up against his chest.

"Do you, darlin'?"

"Yes. I do. Will you love me, forever, Logan? No matter what? Because even if I die, Logan, you have to understand, I might not be dead. I may still be able to come back. Will you still love me? Will you wait for me?"

"As long as I have to, darlin'. I got all the time in the world."

Jean knew he was telling her the truth.

"Logan?"

"Yeah?"

"Dear Jesus, oh, God help me, I think I love you, too."

_Author's Note: Did she say that? Yes! She did! (insert Hallelujah Chorus here!) But, to paraphrase Shakespeare, the course of true love never did run smooth. Especially in these X-books. Which means that all will not be well when Jean and Logan return home, as I hinted previously. Now, in the plug department, for those of you who want to read the whole "I AM IRON MAN" story, check out "Dirty: The Erotic Adventures of the Harlequin" in X-Men Crossovers, Iron Man. And, take note of the very special Christmas episode, "Napalm's Christmas Carol" under X-Men—Wolverine. As for this exciting story, tune in to the same X-time, same X-channel, in which we will be having some nice ultraviolence to go along with all this sex and sudsiness._


	9. Sunshine of Your Love

**Chapter Nine: Sunshine of Your Love**

**New York, 1974 **

**I: Jean**

Morning came, bright and fair and warm, a lovely late-summer morning.

She and Logan got dressed, and checked out of the room, and they drove into the city.

Jean had an urge to go walk in Central Park.

They were just walking along, like anybody else, taking a walk in the park on a sunny morning, and nobody was looking at them funny.

Jean looked over at Logan.

He didn't look like the man everyone said he was, hard to understand, almost impossible to like, a hard man, a bitter man.

He was smiling, bright as the sun overhead, and he looked as happy as a little boy.

"Logan, do you remember when you realised you were a mutant?"

"I always knew, Jeannie. My father was a mutant, and he told me that I would be what he was. Because blood is blood, and blood rules out."

"But when did you know?"

Logan shrugged.

"I ain't sure. I've lost a lotta my memories. But I remember Pa pretty good. I don't reca;ll my Ma, too much, an' I don't remember the man I got my name from, the man who raised mew, Squire Howlett, at all. But I remember everything about my Pa. An' some other things. Like how it usedta drive me crazy, bein' stuck in that big old house, all dressed up in a suit. An' I don't mean it like it is for most boys, I mean, I couldn't take it. I could hear the woods outside, I could smell 'em. On a still day, I could catch Pa's scent in the air. It was like me, but not like me, an' the minute I could, I'd escape and try an' find him. If he was mean an' drunk, he's throw rocks at me like I was a rabbit in his garden, or snarl, an' cuff me. But if he was happy an' drunk, he'd take me off in the woods. For days, sometimes. Teachin' me what I was, an' how I was to survive. That, I never forgot. What about you, darlin'?"

"It wasn't when I started to hear other people's thoughts in my mind. I learned to block them out, but my mother said that Grandma was psychic, so I dismissed it. One day, something happened at school, somebody called me a nerd, or a poindexter, or something, and I was furious. I must have been all of 12. I came home and I was still mad. I was looking out the window, and I was boiling mad, so mad I just wanted to break something. I heard this terrific crash, and I saw my father looking out the window, too, and his newspaper just fell out of his hands. Every car on the street had jumped up six feet in the air, and when they smashed down, all their windows broke. Some of the houses, too. That went beyond Grandma being psychic. My father brought me to Charles a few months after that."

They kept walking, and Logan was holding her hand.

"Logan, when I told you I loved you, I meant it. I'm not going to lie to you, and tell you I'm in love with you, but you are my best friend in the whole world. And I'm not going to give up our time together for anything."

"Not even Cyke?"

Jean sighed.

"I hate myself for loving that asshole. But I am in love with him, even though I really want to kill him, right now. And that whore bitch cunt Emma Frost!"

Logan chuckled.

"All three, huh? That's pretty bad."

"She's pretty bad! And there will come a time when I want Scott to explain to me what the fuck he's doing with her, and when all this started, and then I'll have to rescue him. But it's not now. I'm thirty years old, and you know I've never really had any fun? I spent my teenage years saving the world, and I've been with the same man since I was 14, except for one other guy, one year, in college. So, I'm going to have a little fun. I'm going to see you, and go out on dates, and play the field and, have a good time. Then, when I don't feel like killing him, anymore, I'll worry about Scott. And Emma."

Jean took a deep breath of free air.

"Okay. Let's go home."

***

Jean walked with Logan up to the doors of the Mansion.

"Until next Monday, huh, Logan?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world. Ladies first."

They walked in, separately, and Jean walked through the common room, on her way to the stairs.

The roof did not fall in on her, and nobody gave her a dirty look.

Mel and Kurt were sitting in front of the television, watching a black and white movie, eating breakfast cereal, and talking in German.

It was earlier than Jean thought.

Logan was his usual self, he came back from the kitchen with a beer, and an empty bowl and a spoon.

"Hiya, Elf. Good mornin' Mel."

"Goot morning, Logan."

"Hey, baby. Have a seat."

She poured some cereal into his bowl, and Logan cracked the beer and poured half of it over the cereal.

"How was Frisco? Everything go alright?"

"Yeah. Everything was groovy. Gypsy says hi."

Logan sat down with Mel, and put his arm around her, and she put her head on his shoulder.

They continued with breakfast.

Jean felt a little funny, but they didn't, and she figured, eventually, she'd get over it.

She went up to her room.

"Good morning, Scott."

He looked like he was having anything but, he looked like hell, and Jean didn't feel sorry for him.

Now he really was the bad guy.

"Jean, listen I—"

"Save it, Scooter. Dr. Manhattan isn't the only one who can reduce people to nasty smears of blood and sludge. You're lucky I don't just ionize your ass." Jean snapped.

She went into the closet, and dragged out the old steamer trunk she'd had since she first left home to come to the X-Institute.

Then she opened it up, and took all her clothes out of the closet, folded them up, hangers and all, and put them in the trunk.

After that, she went to work on the drawers.

"What are you doing?" Scott demanded.

"Packing."

"Packing? You're leaving the X-Men?"

"Of course not. I've been an X-Man since I was 13. I'm a professor here, my friends are here, and this is my home. I'm leaving you, that's all."

"Why? You've been unfaithful to me, too!"

"Scott, I had one, count it, one encounter with Logan at a drive-in, and we didn't even go all the way! That sure didn't look like your first time with Emma. I was willing to be honest with you. I would have been willing to have an open relationship. But you made me feel like a whore, and drove Logan out of his own home, and all the while, you were with Emma Frost! How long was this going on?"

"Not the whole time. Since Logan left."

"Oh, so you only started fucking that dirty whore bitch cunt after Logan left, while you were supposedly rebuilding our relationship all summer! Well, that's much better."

Jean continued to pack.

"Are you leaving me for Logan?"

"No, Scott. I'm not in love with Logan. He's my friend, my best friend and I love him, dearly. But, as a friend. Sure, he's very good in bed, oh, I'd say _exponentially_ better than you, but I'm not leaving you for him. I'm leaving you for me. I've worked hard to get where I am in life, and now, I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to see Logan on Mondays and I'm going to enjoy being young and free and uninvolved. Call back some of those guys who have asked me out on dates. Bruce Wayne. Tony Stark. Guys like that. Go to the movies on weekdays, by myself, if I want to. Do whatever I want, whenever I want, just because I can. Even if all I want to do is pull an all-nighter at the New York Public Library, or have a sandwich with Napalm at Grossmann's at two in the morning. I'm going to go out and enjoy my life, Scott. And you can enjoy Emma Frost."

"Jean, I'm sorry. I just…I just…"

"You're just a big fucking jerk."

"Jean, please. I'm sorry. I…I still love you."

"Bullshit. Be happy with Emma. Until she kills you. And then don't come crying to me."

"But you said we were going to be together and have an open relationship."

"Yes. That was before I decided you were a complete and utter piece of shit. For some unknown reason, I still love you, Scott. But I am incredibly fucking furious with you now, and I don't feel like I can trust you as far as I could pick Peter up and throw him. When that changes, if it changes, we'll talk. But if I were you, at this point, I wouldn't hold my breath. Move away from the door."

"I won't."

"Then I'll move you."

Cyclops found himself flying through the air, and landing on the bed, none too gently.

Jean opened the door, and after she couldn't lift her trunk, she sailed it out the door, as well.

"You made your bed, Scott. Now, lie in it."

***

As the end of summer stretched out before her, and became fall, and the students returned and settled into a new year, The Great and Powerful Miss Jean Grey enjoyed her new birth of freedom, and was well on her way to being Jean Grey, Marvel Girl, once again.

It was a wonderful thing, having only to worry about her professional responsibilities, and to otherwise be free to do what she liked, when she liked.

Although Jean had made it sound like she was going to have a new birth of nymphomania, that was not what she used her freedom from the tyranny of being Mrs. Cyclops in all but name for. As she had told Scott, she was going out and enjoying her life, and even if what Jean enjoyed was long nights in the New York Public Library, late nights at Grossmann's Diner, morning walks in Central Park, trips to the movies on a whim, and the occasional trip to jazz clubs in the city, that was freedom to her.

Even the freedom to get up when she wanted to and go to sleep when she wanted to, to arrange her things in her rooms the way she liked, to watch the shows she wanted, listen to the records she liked, to stay up till three in the morning listening to fusion and reading Edgar Rice Burroughs, that was like a little slice of paradise for Jean.

She quit being angry with Scott, because she quit thinking about him and obsessing over him.

As for Scott, he didn't have the breakdown everyone expected him to.

He never tried to blast Logan out of the dimension, or screamed outside Jean's door at two in the morning; if he was still seeing Emma Frost he was doing it discreetly, and off school grounds. Likewise, if Jean had other romantic interests than Mondays with Logan, she wasn't bringing them, or tales of them back to the X-Mansion.

Mondays with Logan.

If there were three more exciting words in the English language, Jean didn't know them.

Six days of the week, Logan was her friend, her teammate, and her co-worker.

A short, hairy fellow with wolfish eyes, powered by beer, junk food, and beef jerky who was smarter than he let on, her friend, her best friend, nothing more and nothing less.

On the day he was her lover, he was a different man.

He was, as Napalm suggested, the end product of a thousand years of evolution, what a piece of work is man, the paragon of animals.

Moonlight and adamantium, such stuff as dreams are made of.

The depth of his love for her, its force and its fury, consumed her, and that was just the way he felt.

You wouldn't think a hairy little Sherman tank of a man like Logan would be a great lover, and maybe a lot of women wouldn't have thought him so, but there were other men and there was Logan and never the twain would meet.

She would never have another lover like Logan, and she would never need one.

There never was one, and there could never be one.

However, the obvious elephant in the living room was that what to do about Scott.

But, right now, Jean was too happy to care.

A situation that would not last long.

**II: Logan**

Did you ever hear the story about the man who got everything he ever wanted?

As it turns out, he was very tired.

At first, Logan just shrugged it off.

You do have three women on your dance card, you old dog you, he reminded himself.

But, as springtime pressed onto summer, Logan could no longer ignore his deterioration; he was going downhill, fast.

He had these constant aches in his body, in his back and his legs and his arms; they neer went away, and he had begun to drag himself around.

Worse, he was sleepy all the damn time.

No matter how much he slept, he wanted to sleep more; he had episodes where he'd fall asleep and snore through an entire day.

And his mind was getting fuzzy, too; he found it hard to focus and concentrate.

The strangest part, though, was that he was often assailed by feelings of hopeless depression.

Logan began to spend entire days at the bar, trying to drink away his troubles; he became completely untidy and unkempt, wearing the same clothes for days on end.

He put up a brave face for Jeannie; he honestly had no idea through what well of strength he was able to perform for either of her it was probably instinct, but, with Mel and Napalm it had become a different story.

It was Mel who got him out of bed in the morning, and moving, into the odd bath and fresh clothes; and only with all the might of her focusing her powers did he have strength to function.

There was blood between him and Napalm, he didn't hide his despair from her. For the first time in his life, since he was a small boy, he was weak, and sick, and it scared the hell out of him. He spent his Wednesdays drinking, and crying, falling asleep in her arms.

Mel wanted to go to Frisco, there was going to be a big meeting of all the West Coast chapters of the Angels, and she wanted to go there with Gypsy, and show all her brothers that she was still alive and well, and go have a good time.

But she was afraid to leave him in the shape he was in.

So, Logan mustered up the last of his strength, and put a week into acting pretty normal again, and Mel, convinced, left on a Sunday.

He saw Jeannie on Monday.

She told him she was glad he'd gotten over whatever had been troubling him.

And Tuesday?

Tuesday was the end.

Logan opened his eyes which weighed about a thousand tons apiece and found that he didn't have the will to get out of his bed, at all.

He felt so tired.

And the window was shut.

He didn't want to die, inside, in a bed; all he could do was wait and hope that someone would come, to take him outside, so he could lie in the grass, and look at the sun.

**The Bowery, New York, 1974**

**I: Victor**

Vic Creed awoke in the middle of the night, feeling like his balls were on fire, the itch was so bad.

Rubbing his bush with the heel of his hand and gritting his teeth, he staggered into the bathroom of his two-room shithole apartment, and pulled the string that turned on the overhead lightbulb.

When he saw the innumerable little red blotches all around his cock and his balls, and a few of the crawly little bastards, he roared in fury.

Crabs.

One of those fucking diseased barroom junkie whore bitches had given him the motherfucking crabs.

That was the last straw, the very fucking last fucking straw.

He'd been thinking about it, lately.

No matter what kind of a pretty frame the run put around the picture, they were in the same business.

Killing motherfuckers.

Except the runt, there were no flies on him.

He's living in a fucking mansion in Westchester, teaching combat to teenage girls in tight tee shirts and tank tops and gym shorts, and shacked up with a genuine Nymph.

He gets three squares a day, free beer, three rooms, his own private fucking bathroom, and nice fat steady paycheck.

And what are you doing, Vic?

The same job for Magneto.

Living in a dump in the Bowery, eating mac and cheese, banging old junkie whores that gave him the crabs, and drinking cheap vodka.

He and the runt used to work for the G, when he was with the Weapon X Program, and it beat the hell out of this shit.

Fuck it.

Time to come in from the cold.

Who knows, maybe I can patch things up with the runt.

It's blood between us, he's the one holding the grudge.

Against his own fucking brother, who raised him like he was a father and not a brother, over a couple of fucking frails.

What was a couple of fucking frails, more or less?

Wolverine hated Sabretooth, but, Sabretooth didn't hate Wolverine.

He couldn't understand the grudge his brother bore him, or why he was so goddamn sanctimonious; every time he fought the runt he was hoping he'd get up off the ground and laugh it off.

He was always a goddamn softie, but Vic didn't give a shit; sometimes he just wanted his goddamn brother back.

Yeah, well, you ain't gettin' shit, workin' for Magneto.

Time to go see the Sarge.

Even though I'm on his shit list.

Col. Edward M. Blake, USMC Special Forces, late of the Invaders, Director of Covert Operations for S.H.I.E.L.D since 1954, the Comedian, was the only CO that ever had a hope in hell of getting Sabretooth to follow orders, since he was one of the few people on Earth that Victor Creed did not want to fuck with.

Better known to the men who were under him in his black ops commando division in 'Nam, and the mercs who worked with him under S.H.I.E.L.D as The Sarge, he was one of the few men Sabretooth ever encountered who was almost as big as he was, and almost as savage.

Maybe more savage, because the Sarge didn't have being a feral mutant to fall back on; he was just a big, mean, nasty sunnuvabitch.

The runt, Creed would fight him all day, neither of them could kill the other.

The Sarge, on the other hand, Vic wasn't too sure that the Sarge wasn't the man nature hadn't created to make him extinct.

Now, the Sarge had never been too fond of him, because the Sarge and the runt were old buddyroos, but he was really on the Comedian's shit list now, pretty much because of a certain, well, you really couldn't call her a frail.

Not Trivelino J. "Napalm" Napier.

Nothing frail about her.

It wasn't as if Creed was just a vicious, murdering psychopath, some kind of sadistic sex killer.

He didn't set out to kill frails, it was just that a large amount of them had a tendency to not survive encounters with him.

Especially the ones that protested too much.

He wasn't one of this crazy weirdos who liked to cut women's heads off and take them to bed with him, or do unmentionable things in their guts, or visit their corpses a few days later like some of these whack jobs you heard about on TV.

They were frails, goddamnit, they just couldn't take it.

Telling him yes and changing their minds, thrashing around, screaming and yelling.

Even when they were willing, and they were fucking willing a lot, all you had to do was put your hand on their mouth the wrong way, or let one claw get away from you, and bingo, they were dead.

And it wasn't as if he carried on with screwing them if they died on him; you'd have to be some kind of weirdo to want to fuck a piece of dead meat.

Not to mention, you could locate a whole shitload of women he'd put it to who were still alive and kicking, why, more of them had made it than not, and some of them were beating his door down to come back for seconds.

But they were frails; there wasn't much to them.

No fun to be had.

Now, you take a woman like Raven, well, there was a broad you didn't mind seeing for seconds, but Raven had a big "Property of the Boss" sign around her neck, these days, so that was right out.

But, every once in awhile, you find a broad like her, a broad worth a second look.

A broad like Trivelino J. "Napalm" Napier.

Five feet, one or two inches, about a buck forty five, maybe a buck fifty of mad, bad and dangerous to know homicidal hellcat with D-cups, no less.

She got him out of a bad jam with the C of H back in the winter of '69, and the first thing he ever saw her do was beat one of those mutant-killing sons of bitches to death with her bare hands.

He bought her a beer or two, she bought him a beer or two, and she had a cheap flop room over the bar.

It was a cold night, and she was a bad girl with hot blood who liked bad men and wanted to know if Vic Creed was a real blond.

That was a cold winter, and there was another night or three where they had a couple beers and went upstairs, and then he borrowed one of her cars without asking while she was drunk and out of it, and wrecked it.

When she insisted he pay the damages, he said some things she didn't like.

Which resulted in him having a meeting with the hook she used to hoist up car engines, only to awaken chained in the adamantium alloy chains she used for the same purposes, secured to the hydraulic lift, while Napalm approached with a chainsaw and a very Jack Napier smile.

To be fair, she did leave his right arm on so that it would be easier for him to stick his legs and his left arm back on.

It was only later that he found out that Napalm had a little problem with quarterly outbreaks of major psychotic fucking rage brought on by nightmares and Herculean boozing that was tactfully known as "The Troubles"

After that meeting with the Society of Supervillians deranged daughter, Sabretooth decided to let it ride.

Until she emerged from the runt's tent roaring like a wild animal, naked, all that red hair flying around her like a halo of hellfire, with two .45 autos in either of her hot little hands.

Sure, she shot him to pieces, but that wasn't what was special about her.

Anybody can kill with a gun.

But it was when she got up close and personal to him, and he could smell her sweat, and her rage, and she took a machete and sliced him from shoulder to hip.

That got his attention.

Not many people could kill like that, up close and personal.

But that still wasn't what was special about her.

What was special about her was that she stuck her hand into the hole she made in his chest, closed her fist around his wildly beating heart, and ripped it out him.

Now that was something.

You would think that after somebody sawed off your limbs with a chainsaw, that would be the living end, but not Napalm.

She managed to do herself one better.

He'd never forget the sight of her, naked, covered in blood, holding his still-beating heart in her hand, laughing that maniacal Jack Napier laugh in triumph.

Well, he was all healed now, but you might say that ever since that day, his beating heart was still in Liv Napier's hands.

What a woman.

It wasn't so much her being with the runt that stopped him in his tracks, and not even so much that she was the only child of the President For Life of the Society of Supervillains; the boss' daughter.

Because the runt never scared him, and big Jack found it very amusing that Vic Creed's reaction to having his daughter bloodily murder him in a way that would have horrified the Manson Family was something like a crush.

Twice.

No, there was one person and one person only who stopped Creed's pursuit of Liv Napier dead in it's tracks.

The Sarge.

And Liv Napier wasn't just his partner, she was his girl.

Maybe he looked the other way at her getting it on with her starstruck fans, and the Sarge went way back with the runt, and he didn't think Shellhead was anything like competition, but if another alpha male came sniffing around his alpha bitch, he wasn't about to back down from the fight.

Vic had fought the Sarge, once, a long time ago, during the Big One, when The Sarge was younger and smaller and less experienced, and Creed was real surprised that he got his ass handed to him, back then in '45.

A year or so back, all he had done was have a drink at Trivelino Mac's, which resulted in a visit from the Sarge in which Sabretooth could have sworn he delivered several death blows, but yet the Comedian splattered him all over the room.

"I'm warnin' you, Vic, you even show up three days later to sniff a seat at the movie theatre my partner sat on, I'm gonna tear your cock and your balls off and stuff 'em down your throat. Then I'm gonna wait for 'em to grow back. If they do. I'll do it again, an' again, until you finally fuckin' choke to death! I got all day, I ain't busy. You got me?"

Eddie Blake did not make idle threats, and on the list of bad ways to die, being repeatedly choked on your own regenerated tool kit until your healing factor gave up the ghost and you either choked to death or bled out was probably number one.

Of course, Creed knew the reason the Sarge wanted him to stay away from Liv, and it wasn't because he was worried about her welfare.

It was because he knew goddamn well that what his woman liked was big, bad men. Hell, she fell for the Comedian because he was the biggest, baddest, meanest son of a bitch she could find who wasn't a supervillain, a psychotic mass murderer, or both.

And there wasn't anybody who wouldn't tell you that Sabretooth was one big, bad, mean son of a bitch. He was pretty sure that after a couple of drinks and a few laughs, despite her loyalty to the runt, she wouldn't be able to help herself from having another look see if good old Vic was still a real blond.

That's what Eddie didn't want.

Competition.

Well, right now, all Vic wanted was to get out of the Bowery.

As for a shot at Napalm, well, he had time.

And what Jimmy and the Sarge didn't know wouldn't hurt them.

**S.H.I.E.L.D Headquarters, New York City, Office of Director Edward M. Blake**

"So, Vic, ya want back in, huh? Well, ain't that nice. What are you bringin' to the table?"

"Information."

The Sarge laughed at him.

"Fuck your information!I know when the last time that crazy fuck Magneto took a shit. I got informants in the Brotherhood, I got informants in the Society, I got informants at Arkham. I got information up the ass."

"What were ya lookin' for, Sarge?"

"Y'wanna see somethin', Vic? Open up that closet on your left. Turn on the light."

"Jesus!"

There it was, John Stryker's pickled head.

"Nick didn't want it, so I kept it. Sometimes, for certain people, in certain meetings, I put it on my desk."

"You want somebody's head, Sarge?"

"Yeah, Vic. Yours. I want five years. I don't care who the fuck makes you what kind of motherfucking offer, if you wanna come in from the cold, I fucking own you for five years. I draw the line, you put your toes on it. No side jobs, no backsliding, no bullshit. That includes going up to the X-Mansion and starting shit. You and Jimmy can't get along, ya wanna duke it out on private, fine. On your own time, on neutral turf and nobody dies. That's the deal. You put on a fucking uniform and you give me five years. Me. Your old CO. When I say jump, you ask how high. When I say shit, you ask what color. Five years."

"I could just go see Charlie Xavier. He's a sucker for a sob story."

"Yeah. You could. How long do you think Jimmy would let you live?"

"Awww, that runt can't kill me."

"No, but he can make your life pretty fuckin' unpleasant. Youse can run your sob story past Charlie. He'll know if you're bullshittin' him. They, you're gonna do a few months there at the X-Mansion, in case you're a world-class bullshitter. I'll start you at Level Three. You were a Sergeant, you can get your rank back. You'll make a Sergeant's pay, and get a Sergeant's benefits, and we'll front you the dough to get into a better place. If ya pass muster with Charlie Xavier. Now, should youse start fuckin' up, killin' people, terrorisin' your neighbourhood, you'll finish your five years in Hell. There's prisons in the world that'll hold you, Vic, and if I gotta get you there, myself, I will. You get me?"

"Yeah, Sarge. I get you. But five years? Jesus, a tour in 'Nam was only one year!"

"Oh yeah? Why did it seem longer to me that you was there?"

"Hey, c'mon Sarge, who was it helped you bury that gook broad who tried to kill you with the bottle? Gimme a break, huh?"

"Ya got six months, Vic. You got six months to drop out, no questions asked. But, if you do, don't come back to the US government lookin' to come in from the cold. If you go this time, you're out. Take it, or leave it."

Sabretooth thought about it.

He thought about where being in the Brotherhood had and hadn't got him, and he thought about the room in the Bowery, and the cops and the feds and the whores with the crabs.

"I'll take it."

"Good. And keep your mouth shut about who you work for. That's why they call it Covert Operations."

"I know that, Sarge."

"Yeah, Vic. You know everything. Go back to your flop, and wait for the package. Then you can go to Westchester. And one more thing. You do know what I'll do to you if you touch my girl, right?"

"Sarge, I'm not that dumb."

"Vic, that broad is catnip for sons of bitches. Ya wouldn't hafta be dumb. Just breathin'. An' there may come a time when she starts rubbin' up against youse, an Hell, I can see why you'd do it. But I'll fuckin' kill youse just the same. You get me?"

"Yeah, Sarge. I understand."

**Westchester, New York**

**III: Victor**

Sabretooth showed up at the X-Mansion on a Tuesday morning that was bright, excellent and fair.

He found himself the object of a lot of hard stares, and some dirty looks, and he was pretty sure that what Colossus said to him meant something like "fuck you" in Russian, but Charlie X had put the word around that good ol' Vic Creed was coming back to the fold to be a good little black sheep, so he moved into his rooms alright, and got to the kitchen unmolested.

And it was all go at the X-Mansion, you put that many mutants in one place and you're going to get a fucking soap opera.

Today's installment of As the Stomach Turns featured the White Queen, and Cyclops, and as he peaceably entered the kitchen to see about the possibility of food, Sabretooth walked right into it.

In this corner, a hastily and scantily dressed Emma Frost.

Fucked her, she's still alive.

"Hello, baby. Is that…_sniff_…Scooter I smell all over you? Shit, talk about a mercy fuck!"

"Victor, what do the conjunction of the words "fuck" and "off" mean to you?"

"Lemme see. How about I'll see you, your place, Friday, unless you'll be entertaining the Invincible Iron Man?"

"Fuck off, and fuck you!"

"So, I guess that means yes. Didja change your locks?"

"Yes. Knock. I'll know it's you."

Regally, the White Queen took her leave.

And, entering the room as Victor sat at the table with a half a bag of chips, the loser and still wimpiest, Scooter.

Who had no shirt on, and was holding up his pants.

"Jesus." He said

"Yeah, I know. Hope you wore a rubber, my man." Creed advised, laughing.

Cyke buckled his belt.

"Sure I did. She sleeps with you."

Sabretooth laughed.

"Hey, that's a good one! Took some balls."

"Yeah, well, when Jean left me, she gave them back. Poor Logan. He has no idea."

Cyclops got a donut from a box on the counter.

"You listen, Creed. I know you think I'm a sad little bastard, but, I'm the team leader, here, in combat situations. So this can go two ways. We can live here, and get along, and you can do what I tell you in the field, or I can fry your ass to a crisp. It won't kill you, but it'll hurt."

"Hey, Cyke, don't worry about me. I like this setup. I'm gonna be a good little Injun."

"I hope." Cyclops said, and took his leave.

Sabretooth couldn't help but think that ol' Cyke, he manned up, a lot. He thought about what he'd said about Jimmy.

Maybe me and Mr. Sentiment need to have a talk.

Vic polished off the chips, and then proceeded directly through the open doors to Professor X's office.

***

"So you see, Chuck, it's like this. I ain't gonna pretend that I'm all the sudden Mr. Sunday-Go-To-Meetin', but like Erik says, it's all economics. Here I am, I'm livin' like a hunted fuckin' animal in a flop in the Bowery with rats, roaches and junkies. And my old pal Jimmy, he's up here livin' in the lap of luxury. Three rooms in a mansion. Three squares a day. Steady work, steady paycheck. Nice lookin' broads with no track marks who won't steal your wallet while you're sleepin' and give you the crabs. And I'm alright by Nick Fury, then you got what they call the Full Faith and Credit of Uncle Sam behind you. I usedta have that, but then, like a dumb-ass, I went rogue. Now I've never been anything but a mercenary, and I've spent a lot of time workin' directly for Uncle Sam, and never against him. So what the fuck am I doin' workin' for Magneto, when I can feather my nest here, and maybe get in good with the G again? I got it all worked out with the Srage, and he's got it all worked out with Fury. If they think I'm straightened up and flyin' right, I can slide back into government work, again. Look, I just wanna come in outa the cold, Chuck. One mutant to another."

"Well, Victor, considering the degree of psi blocks you've put up in your mind, all I can discern from you is that you haven't come here to harm Logan, and that, indeed, violence is not on your mind."

"See? I know I can't lie to you."

"That said, you'll forgive me if I don't trust you as far as I can throw you. But, you are a fellow mutant, and I'm duty bound by my own charter not to just turn you away. I warn you, though, Mr. Creed, one slip up, and you are out. And I couldn't possibly let you stay here for more than a month."

"That'll be good enough. Chuck. I appreciate you givin' me another chance."

"I hope you don't misuse it."

Of course, there was no way you could explain that to Jimmy.

Jimmy always had a fucking temper, a worse fucking temper than he ever had.

Not only did he look just like Pa, he had Pa's temper, he'd fucking fly off the handle over goddamn anything, especially when he had a few beers in him, and although he didn't drink like Pa did, shit, nobody on Earth drank like Pa did, there wasn't a whole lot of times he didn't have a few beers in him.

Still, it was time to yank the runt's chain a little.

Sabretooth stalked back and forth outside the runt's door to his rooms, knowing he'd been sniffed out.

No Jimmy.

That wasn't like him.

"Hey, Jimmy? C'mon, runt, what are ya doin', hidin from me? I wanna tellya somethin'. I didn't come here to steal your woman, either of 'em, or beat the shit outa you, or kill anybody. I got tired of livin' in the Bowery like a fuckin' hunted animal, an' I'm tryin' to get back in good with the G. If this works out, I owe five years of my life to the Sarge, and that's some stretch. But at least I'll be off the shit list. I'm serious, Jimmy. I'm on the level."

Still no answer.

Sabretooth opened the door and went into Wolverine's rooms.

Immediately, an unsettling smell assailed his nose; it was sickness, but a strange, indefinable sickness.

_**SNIKT!!!!!!**_

Wolverine sat up in bed, his claws out.

"You never been on the level in your fucking life, Creed!"

Sabretooth slammed his door.

Here we go, him and his fucking temper, and he was on his high fucking horse, again.

Nobody was around, so he let the runt have it, jabbing a clawed finger at his chest.

"No? So I wasn't on the level when I left a cushy job workin' days for Wells Fargo an' nights as the bouncer of the most high class whorehouse in the Dakotas to maroon my ass in the Great White North with you for almost ten years on that shit-ass little homestead of Pa's way up on a fuckin' mountain in East Central Shitsville with a coupla mangy chickens, an old milk cow, a work horse and a fuckin ten foot square patch of sorry fuckin' vegetables? How about that shit, huh? Was I on the level, then?"

That took the wind out of Jimmy's sails for about a minute.

"Oh yeah? Well, how about when you and me and Pa had that claim up in the Yukon during the gold rush and you decided that my woman, who had been my woman since I was 15 and who you never gave two shits for until she grew some tits and ass had to spread it around the whole family! It wasn't enough for you I had to leave my Pa, and my claim, and our land, and take her way up on the mountain, you hadda follow us! And you couldn't take no for and answer, you hadda kill her on my birthday!"

"I thought your memory was shit!"

"Some things a man don't forget!"

"Well she ain't dead, is she?"

"That's a little beside the fuckin' point!"

"Goddamn you Jimmy, get off your high motherfuckin' horse! You know what you do, here? You fuckin' kill things! You get three squares a day and a nice suite of rooms and a steady paycheck to teach sweet young things in tank tops and gym shorts how to fight, in exchange for your services as a guy who kills things. Any fuckin' thing. You got, count' em, three good-looking frails pantin' after you on a regular basis, an' everybody thinks my brother's a hero. Well, goddamn it, I kill things, too. An' I gotta live in the Bowery an' be a bad guy? Fuck that shit! You can't bullshit me, Jimmy. We came from the same crazy, drunken Mick of a father who never wanted to do anything but fight, drink, screw an' read books, an' neither of us is that different from Pa! So if you can be a hero, so can I! Fuck you if you don't like it. You're not fuckin' up my last shot!"

He headed for the door as Jimmy delivered his parting shot.

"I won't hafta fuck it up for you, Vic! You'll fuck it up, yourself! You'll end up sticking either your dick or your claws in the wrong place and Eddie'll put his boot right up your ass and you'll be back in the Bowery where you belong with the other fuckin' bums!"

Victor Creed went downstairs and sat himself in front of the TV.

Everybody who was sitting on the couch moved.

He sat there for awhile, thinking about his encounter with the runt.

Since when did he fight sitting up in bed.

Since when was he in bed at two in the afternoon, on a warm and sunny day?

And there was that sick smell.

The more he thought about it, the less he liked it.

Finally, he went back upstairs.

"Hey runt?"

No answer at all.

"Jimmy? Ya alright in there?"

Not even a sound.

Sabretooth went into the room a second time.

Jimmy was just lying there on the bed.

"Jimmy?"

Victor opened up the drapes, and let the sun in.

Jimmy's eyelids fluttered, and he groaned like a man who was a hundred years old.

"Jesus Christ, Jimmy, what the fuck is the matter with you?"

Victor couldn't help but notice Jimmy's unshaven chin, and his bloodshot eyes, ringed with purple pouches, and his unhealthy pallor.

Under the pale white, his skin looked grey, and his eyes were empty, distant and lifeless.

It took a while for them to focus on his brother's face.

There was a lot of bad blood between them, but, at a time like this, that kind of shit didn't matter.

Like Pa always said, blood is blood, and blood rules out in the end.

"You alright, there, little brother?" Sabretooth asked.

He leaned closer, sniffing around his brother, hesitantly.

"Take me outside, willya, Vic? I don't wanna die in a bed."

"I'll take you outside, alright. I'm gettin' you the fuck outa here, right fuckin' now!"

Talk about he ain't heavy, he's my brother.

***

Vic Creed carried 300 pounds of jellified Wolverine out to his van, and started out for the thruway.

He had a pretty good idea what was eating his little brother up alive.

She did this to him. Miss Fuckin' Mind. She sucked the juice out of Cyclops slow, over a long time. But Jimmy was a man and Scooter was a little faggot, so she had battened onto Jimmy a lot harder.

She was riding him into the ground and sucking the life right out of him, faster than his healing factor could fix him.

All the healing factor in the world can't fix you when your mind's all blasted into mush.

He figured he had to take Jimmy someplace where he could hide out, with somebody he trusted.

That spelled out one person.

Napalm.

There was blood between them, and she was a smart broad.

He stopped off at the sleazy bar he'd passed on the way in, and made a phone call.

"What?"

"Hiya, Sarge. Listen, I'm not blowin' this deal, but there's somethin' wrong with my brother. I'm takin' him to New York, to Napalm. I just wanted you to know I wasn't movin' in on her."

"What the fuck are you talkin' about, Creed?"

Sabretooth laid the whole story out for the Comedian.

"Jesus Christ. Well, the kid, she knows a lot about mutants, an' genes, and science, she'll take good care of him. You can come back to the city, and bunk in at the dorm at HQ, here, until all that shit blows over. Just goes to show you. Never fuck a broad who can get into your fuckin' brains with you. I fuckin' told him that. I said, Jesus, Jimmy, this broad, she's got a mortgage on your body an' a lien on your soul, an' if you get in deep with her, she'll stick a fuckin' straw in your brains and suck the juice outa youse like a fuckin' vampire. She's a fuckin telepath, she can't help it. Look what she's done to fuckin' Scooter. Did he listen? No."

"My brother's got a sixth sense for the wrong broads. Napalm's the only broad I've seen him with since Raven who never did anything to fucking destroy him."

"Yeah, well, you stay out of it, Vic. Let Jimmy figure it out for himself."

**III: Liv**

So I get this weird phone call from Eddie, which makes very little sense to me, but I understand Logan's sick, and everybody thinks I can fix him up, so I swing into action.

I leave the lab early, and I call home and talk to Alfred.

All I really told him was that Wolverine had been subject to a psi force for an extended period of time that had sapped his strength, and he was going to come and stay with me in my rooms for awahile, if he needed anything, could Alfred please help him if I was working.

Alfred was tactful enough to pretend he hadn't the faintest idea of what I was talking about, and said he'd inform Pop, but he was sure that would be just fine.

Of all the people to show up with Logan, it's Vic Creed, and I know he must be in a bad way if that evil SOB has suddenly become full of brotherly love.

Logan's tottering along with brother dear's help, and he manages to get out a wan grin and a "hello, darlin'" before I take charge of him.

I took him to my bedroom and put him to bed.

Now Alfred, he was a medic in the British Army, so he knows some basic medicine, and he went in to check Logan over.

And here's Sabretooth, in my living room, helping himself to my booze.

"You wanna tell me just what the fuck is going on?" he asks me.

"I'm tellin' ya, Vic, that X-Mansion is like a fuckin' soap opera, anymore. Everybody's fuckin' everybody else on the QT, runnin' in an' out of each other's bedrooms all night, fuckin' themselves stupid, and then they all sit down to breakfast and pretend nothin's goin' on. I mean, take Logan, for example. He's got every broad in the joint tryna crawl in his pants with him. His girl, Yukon Mel, she wants to get him the fuck out an' I can see why. I got Wednesdays and I'm crowded in, and she's lucky if she can get in his bedroom, at all. He's got Jean Grey on Mondays, and if you think Jean doesn't get in where she can fit in on the weekend, you're crazy. She's wearin' the poor man down to a nub. Not like me an' Mel, we understand the man has to eat and sleep and stop and smell the fuckin' roses, ya know? But Jean, she spent so many years with Scooter, who, if ya want me to tell you the truth, I'd like to take for a spin just to corrupt the shit out of him, it's no wonder she acts the way she does, but she's ridin' Logan right into the ground. Look, I got no proof of this, but ever since him and Jean parted ways, Scooter's like a whole new man. I mean he's still Scooter, but he ain't tired, he ain't listless, and aint depressed. He's all fulla fuckin' energy, zoomin' around and fulla life an' just bustin' out with wholesome good cheer. At the same time, Logan, he's gettin' more an' more like Scooter was with every passing day. Worse even. So, I'd say that, an' probably without her knowin' it, when Jean digs a guy, and she's into him, she's into him further than he knows. Without gettin' to sciencey on you, what I mean is, she's not just crawlin' into his pants with him, she's his head with him, too. Got her fingers in his mind. Maybe that's just the way it is when you're into somebody, they're always on your mind, but with Jean, I think she's always in their minds. And she's gone goofy over Logan, so it only makes sense she's really leanin' on him."

"Yeah, I was thinkin' the same thing. But as soon as the stupid bastrd gets well enough, he'll be draggin' his happy ass right back there into her arms. An' he aint gonna listen to me."

"He ain't gonna listen to nobody about Jean Grey. But, if you really wanna make an impression that you turned over a new leaf, somebody hasta tell Charlie that he'd better reprogram Jean so that she doesn't kill a guy with kindness. And as for the rest of the chicks in that joint, you better watch your pants, my friend. Every broad who gave you the evil eye this afternoon will be poundin' down your door by nightfall, rippin off your pants an' foamin' at the mouth. An' should you try and say hello to them in the morning they'll use this or that fuckin' mutation to put a powerful hurtin' on you. And, whoever their old man is, who is most likely fucking Emma Frost and several of the students that are 16 or older on the sly, he'll try and rip you a new one. It won't be long before they're all stampedin' to the principal's office, blamin' you for every little thing, and you end up on Eddie's shit list, and back in the Bowery."

It took Sabretrooth a minute or two to process all that information.

"Tell me again why I'm the bad guy and they're the good guys?" he asks.

This is a question I often wrestle with, myself.

"I think it comes down ta who you kill, an' why. If ya kill in cold blood, or if ya like to kill, just to see some fucker bleed, or if ya kill innocent people, that makes you a bad guy. But, then, again, the good guys have killers, too. People like me an' Logan an' Eddie. I guess we skate right up to the line." I replied

"I've skated over it." Vic admits.

"Yeah. No shit. I guess you get to be a good guy because it's a shit world, and they always need more killers, and when a guy's good at his job, Uncle Sam can always find a bigger rug to sweep a few bodies under. That's life."

"Sure is, Red. That doesn't surprise me about the X-Mansion. You know, Erik always usedta tell us that if Charlie X knew what went on behind closed doors at night in that place, he'd start putting saltpetre in the water."

"Hey, I been spendin' nights there since 1970, and you would not believe the shit I haven't seen. But lately, since all this shit with Jean and Logan started, it's really been go go go. If you want my advice, keep your dick in your pants. Lock your door at night. Go do your screwin' down at the Thruway. Me, I go up on Wednesday, I spend my time with Logan, I teach my class on Thursday morning, I eat my lunch and I get the fuck outa that hubba-hubba hump-a-thon horny house of hysterical hypocrisy."

"Thanks for the advice, Napalm."

"No problem, Vic. If you really are goin' straight, you deserve a chance. If you ain't, Jesus, I don't know how to kill youse for an encore, this time."

That struck her funny, and she laughed one of her Jack Napier laughs, her eyes going that bright yellow green that made just about anybody uncomfortable in the same room as a Napier.

Sabretooth shrugged it off, and had another beer.

"You better get your ass in the wind. If Eddie finds you here, he'll just go ahead and assume the worst and kill you. For good, if he can."

"Hey, Red, ya killed me twice, already. Why you bein' so fuckin' nice?"

"You're Logan's brother. Blood is blood. Cross me or him an' I'll kill youse again, but there'll always be blood between us, Vic."

Creed nodded.

Most girls wouldn't get that, hell, most people wouldn't, but he knows I do.

***

So, Alfred comes out of my bedroom a few minutes after Sabretooth splits, and he tells me that, physically, there's not much wrong with Logan.

He's exhausted, somewhat dehydrated, and he has a slight fever, probably due to his poor condition, but his healing factor should be taking care of that.

"Now, it's beyond my expertise, but I would hazard a guess that Mr. Logan's problem is indeed due to that psi force you mentioned. It has most likely sapped his strength to the point where his healing factor is completely occupied in the minimum maintenance of his mental faculties. I would assume that since he's been removed from the force in question, he'll be able to improve. But, put his back in the purview of that force again, and he'll worsen, again."

"Don't worry, Alfred. Professor X knows about it, and he's going to take care of it."

"And you're going to take care of Mr. Logan?"

"Yeah."

**III: Charles**

"Thank you very much, cabbie."

"No problem, Professor. You just call and I'll be there in an hour."

The van marked "Westchester County Specialised Transport" pulled away, leaving Professor Charles Xavier to wheel down the neat, quiet, tree lined street on Central Park West, with the park on one side of him and a row of expensive old stately homes and dignified brownstones rising on the other.

He stopped and turned, wheeling himself up a tree-lined stone walk, to a set of steps, which had an intercom box woven into its tasteful wrought-iron grating.

Squaring his shoulders, resolutely, he pressed the button on the intercom.

"Hello? Good morning?"

It was a lovely spring morning, indeed.

After a pause, he heard the button click, and a sleepy voice.

"Hello?"

"Good morning, Raven. It's Charles. Did I wake you?"

"Professor Xavier? Where are you?"

"Erm, outside."

"I'll go wake Erik."

In a few minutes, the carved oak door opened and there was Erik, tying the front of his obscenely expensive dressing gown that was the same color as his costume, smoothing out his thick white hair, with a careless motion of his hand.

Same old Erik, lazily getting up late from a late night with a beautiful woman, and looking like he was ready for the cameras to roll.

"Charles! This is a surprise. Let me help you in."

Professor X found his wheelchair levitating smoothly through the doorway, and he wheeled himself after Erik through the foyer, and into a cosy but elegant dining room.

"I do appreciate you opening your school to Victor. I don't know why he wants to get back in bed with the government, but, it's his life. Or has he done something unspeakable, already."

"He never got the chance. He arrived, unpacked, had breakfast, and found that his, former comrade, Logan, was extremely ill. He took Logan to a…safe place to recuperate, and came to see me, to inform me of the situation. He's still at the Mansion, and he's been minding his p's and q's, and Logan is recovering but he won't be able to return until the…source of his illness has been taken care of."

Erik raised an eyebrow.

Charles thought about Victor Creed's words.

The man seemed genuinely upset.

As well he should be, for, unbeknownst to the rest of the X-Men and most of the world, but known to Professor X, Logan was Victor Creed's younger brother.

"Look, Charlie, I've known Jimmy Logan a long goddamn time. Since he was crawling on all fours, if you wanna know. An', next to the Comedian, and uh, Jimmy's father, and, well, me, he's the strongest son of a bitch I ever knew. I mean, they dropped that Hiroshima bomb right in his lap, and he walked away. When we were with Weapon X, I saw him do some shit, let me tell you. But that guy I saw there, lyin' in bed? That wasn't the Jimmy Logan I know. He looked like somebody stuck a fuckin' straw in him, right into his heart an' his soul an' sucked most of it right outa him. Like a wet paper sack. You know he asked me ta take him outside,m an'; let him die in the sun? I load him into my van, he couldn't walk. No offence to you, Charlie, but, until you can tell that telepath broad to turn off the juice. She's killin' him."

Charles thought about a way to sugarcoat the pill.

"It's come to my attention that I was slightly remiss in some of my training of Jean Grey. Apparantly, when she gets involved with a man, subconsciously, she leeches some of his vitality from him." He said.

"I see. And when you say that, do you mean he gets a little tired and cranky, or do you mean she slowly sucks away the marrow of his mind until he is a grey and lifeless melancholy shadow of a man?" Erik asked.

"More the latter than the former."

"I see. Well there are a lot of women, and I suppose, men who will do that to a person, even if they aren't a telepath. Let me guess. Scott Summers is flowering brightly, like a late-blooming rose. And poor Logan, upon whom Jean has likely battened herself with a vengeance, after a lifetime in the limpid arms of Mr. Milquetoast, is withering away at an alarming rate, having got much more of what he wanted than is good for him."

"Yes. He's left the Institute, for awhile, as I said. Trivelino is taking acre of him. He's been away two or three days and he's much better. But he wants to come back. Erik, this is serious. How can I tell him that it's the woman he loves that's killing him? And how can I tell Jean that the reason Scott fell into a deep dissociative depression that nearly destroyed his sanity was because she's been unwittingly feeding off him like a vampire, for all these years? My God, I must be blind. How was it I didn't see this, all these years?"

"It's very simple, Charles. Scott hasn't got much of a life force to suck away, and I imagine Jean's doing quite a bit more sucking away at Logan."

He smiled a little to himself, at his joke.

"We did program her together, Erik. When she was a child. At the time, we worked together. I'm not sure I can re-program her without your help. And, as you said, I am giving Victor another chance."

"Quid pro quo, eh, Charles? It's not necessary. I don't really see where my aiding you in helping a fellow mutant goes against my agenda. And you've told her nothing?"

"That I will undertake, alone."

"Charles, if you'll forgive me, you aren't exactly a ladies man. Perhaps I should help you in this matter from beginning to end. In the mean time, I think it would be best for Logan if he stays with Trivelino, don't you?"

Charles sighed, heavily.

"Yes."

"As for Logan, and Cyclops, no one needs to tell them anything. After we've helped Jean correct her problem, they'll never know she had it. Best to keep things simple. And I'll speak to Trivelino without Logan's knowing. Get her to hold onto him, for a little while."

Charles smiled a little.

"I forget, sometimes. The Joker and Magneto aren't to her what they are to other masks. Villains. To her, it's Daddy, and Erik, who taught German, classical music, and chess when she was growing up."

"As Trivelino is fond of saying, sometimes there's very little difference between one side of the cape, and the other. Now, let's put our troubles aside, and have breakfast, like civilised people. Raven, you can come in, now."

For a little while, Charles Xavier decided that was good advice

**IV: Jean**

It wasn't just that Jean knew because she was a telepath.

She wasn't blind.

She could see Scott flowering like a late-blooming tree, and Logan withering and dying like a sturdy plant that had suddenly been ripped from the ground by its roots.

But, when she went to Charles' office and found that Erik Lensherr was there, too, she realised that her problems were more serious than she had thought.

"Jean, you and I have to talk." Charles said

"About what? I know what's wrong with me. I almost destroyed Scott's mind, and I just about killed Logan. Napalm had to take him away from here, and if I so much as have lunch with my…one of my very best friends, it will destroy him. I want to join the Brotherhood, Erik. Get me out of here. I don't want to hurt anyone else I love."

Jean was glad she didn't sob; she felt like sobbing.

"It's not so bad as all that, my dear. You were a little girl, and a little girl in a coma, at that, the last time Charles and I tried to help you. How were we to know that when you became a woman, you would be the fortunate kind of woman who loves so deeply, with all her heart and soul, that she leaves a little of herself in the souls of the men she loves. You're just leaving a little too much. And Charles can fix that, I'm sure." Erik assured her.

"Everything will be fine, Jean. You and I will go on a voyage together, and Erik will be here to, spot us, as it were. Just like when you were a child."

"It's my fault, Charles. I've been, well, I've been wrong all these months. I was wrong to try and change my life."

"Jean, it's never wrong to desire to be free. Now, you must be strong. For Logan, because he loves you. You know he won't care if that would kill him, he'd gladly die for you. And for Scott. He loves you, and you love him, and he's tripping merrily down the path to misfortune, without you." Professor X explained.

"A path that many, many, many men have trodden before." Magneto quipped.

"That fucking whore! She's lucky I don't blow her into bloody blonde bits!" Jean seethed.

"Jean, please!" Professor X insisted.

"Oh, let her go, Charles. She has every right to be angry." Erik protested.

"Yes, but where we are going, it won't do her much good."

Jean was afraid to go into her own mind, with Charles, afraid of what she might find there, but, it was the only way.

(_Author's Note: This is not turning into a movie fic, and although I didn't like Logan and Victor as brothers the way they were portrayed in the Wolverine Origins movie, as there was not enough there, I found the idea intriguing, especially after reading the Wolverine Origin and Sabretooth Origin comics. Also, I've written up some Sabretooth mayhem, but one gets tired of him just showing up and going nutso; there's more to the character than that, and I figured, well, let's see him at his best, and knowing good ol' Vic Creed, he'll be showing us his worst, soon enough.)_


	10. Cruel To Be Kind

**Chapter Ten: Cruel To Be Kind**

**I: Jean & Charles**

Jean and Charles were sitting in a large, white parlour, having a cup of Earl Grey tea.

Hot.

It was a rather odd and singular place.

The walls were white, the carpeting and the future were all white.

There was no ceiling, just an endless white space, extending into eternity.

The bookcases that lined the walls and the spines of the books inside them were white.

And the huge file cabinets that reached into the vault of the white ceiling, they were all gleaming, pristine and dazzlingly white.

Like huge gleaming pillars of ivory.

The only colour in the room was on the roses painted on the tea set.

Charles Xavier looked around.

He had witnessed the personification of many consciousnesses, some of which were brawling and fractured and disturbing.

Those were all somehow less disturbing that Jean's neat, clean, white, bookcase-lined anteroom, complete with china tea service.

"A place for everything, and everything in it's place, Jean?"

"I can't afford disorder in my mind, Charles."

"But yet, it exists. You know, on the occasion that Trivelino invited me into her mind, the first thing that happened was we fell up Alice's rabbit hole. Very slowly. And we landed on a nice comfy couch, in a big cavern full of doors that were constantly opening and closing, with all manner of things going to and fro in them, things that greeted us and each other as they passed. Do you know she literally has a train of thought? And I saw it derail? And she cheerfully told me that happens a few times a day, and that someone else would fix it, one of the other Triveino J. Napiers who lived in her head with her? And when I got curious about all those wildly slamming doors, go ahead, Professor, she told me. Go in any room you like. I don't have any locks, that would use up too much of what little sanity I have. I'll stay here. I have to think. It's my constant thinking that keeps this place going. If I stop thinking, there will be chaos."

Jean laughed.

"I'll bet you found that disturbing."

"Somewhat. But not as disturbing as this, Jean. At least she had her cards on the table, as it were. All your doors are locked. I doubt you even go in them."

He put down his teacup.

"We'd better get to work. I'll need the Scott file, and the Logan file. And any material you might have on love. That is, that isn't too personal."

Jean climbed up a long white ladder and disappeared.

It was very quiet, in her mind.

Too quiet.

All he could hear was the sound his cup made when he picked it up from the saucer.

Jean returned, encumbered with some very thick files.

The Logan file was twice as thick as the Scott file, and it was padlocked.

"The locked file, first, Charles?"

"Open them all, Jean."

Fire.

All the emotion that was not in Jean's neat white room, all the myriad of passion and pain and joy and sorrow and rage and lust and love and tragedy and triumph jumped from those three white folders in orange and red and black and yellow, in fire and storm and sunshine and shadow.

Clearly, Jean had to choose a place where she was not, as Scott called her, The Great and Powerful Jean Grey, a place to vent her feelings, to wilfully be out of control, and this was clearly where it was.

And then, he was back in the bright white room again, and Jean was stacking the three neat folders, also whiter than white.

"Jean, this is all wrong. I did not build this disturbing, sterile place that you're living in. You did. You cannot simply decide that you have no feelings, because you fear them, and then dump your every inconvenient emotion into your pursuit of love. Even for a person without telepathic powers, that would be disastrous. But, considering your abilities, it is also disastrous for the men that you love. Especially Logan. Just because he has enhanced healing abilities doesn't mean he's a god on Earth. Logan is just a man, Jean. And no man, indeed, no human being's consciousness could withstand an onslaught like the one I've just experienced, on a regular basis. Because you are funnelling all of…all of that into, well, into their souls, if you want to be metaphysical about it. Like a laser beam. Jean, you are a human being, you are not a science project. The Phoenix Force will not erupt from the boundaries of your subconscious and burn down the world due to you allowing yourself to simply experience normal human emotions. I want to see some color in this place, Jean. Some character. I want to see you."

"You mean, right now, Charles?"

"Right now would be an excellent time to start."

**II: Erik and Charles**

Charles and Jean Grey were in a trance for eight hours.

Eight hours in which Magneto sat at Charles' desk, minding the store for him, watching over him and Jean Grey.

She seemed to get the worst of it, poor girl.

At one point she threw herself violently from the chair, and despite Charles telling him not to interfere, Erik picked her up and put her back in the chair.

He smoothed her hair, and held her hand, and put his arm around her, and said a lot of foolish, soothing nonsense to her and patted her on the knee and she calmed down.

Eight hours of prolonged telepathic contact, rooting around in the woman's mind.

I could have sorted her out in one.

But, that's what Wolverine thought, and look where it got him.

Otherwise, Magneto didn't pry into his former colleague's desk or his papers; Erik had enough informants that had passed through the Institute to know all that he wanted to know.

The school ran so smoothly that he had only one incident the whole time.

He left the inner part of the office and went into the outer parlour, to answer a knock.

Nightcrawler brought three unruly looking young mutants with fresh bruises and fat lips and a bloody nose or two shuffling into the office in their rumpled, dirty clothes.

"There has been a fight. We usually bring zeze things to ze Professor's attention."

Magneto suppressed a smile.

"Oh? And what was the fight about?"

"I don't think we should hafta go to school with niggers." Said one boy.

The black boy jumped for him, and Nightcrawler restrained him.

"Don't you? Well, I hate to tell you, little man, but in the eyes of the world, all we mutants might as well be niggers. Or kikes. Or faggots. Do you like those words? How about mutie? Four-eyes? Shorty? Freak?"

"Are you calling me a four-eyed mutie shorty freak?"

"Were you calling your fellow student, your fellow mutant, a nigger? Young man, you are here in summertime because your parents want nothing more to do with you because you're a mutant. This is your home, now. And that boy is your brother. If he's a nigger, so are you. And what's your story?"

The third student, a little girl wiped blood from her nose.

"Bill's my friend. My best friend. Nobody's gonna call him a you-know-what and get away with it." She said.

"A commendable attitude, young lady. Mr. Warner, take all three of our combatants to the infirmary. And whatever the usual punishment Charles gives out for fighting, impose it threefold on our little bigot. The others are blameless."

Shortly after that, Erik was in the office, playing chess with himself when Jean and Charles came out of their trances.

She looked tired when she made her way out of the office, but Charles seemed completely exhausted.

"Was it that bad?"

"Are you playing chess with yourself, again, Erik?"

"Yes. And I'm losing."

Charles wheeled up behind his desk, and they settled in for a game.

"A white room, Erik. Literally a white room."

"And all her emotions were bound up with love and sex?"

"Yes."

"That's going to take you awhile to sort out."

"Well, I've made progress. I think that what I'm going to do is see her and Scott at the same time."

"What about Logan?"

"My God, Erik, that man has enough problems! He doesn't need to be involved with this. If you ask me, he doesn't need to be involved with Jean, at all. I fear that Logan is caught, as it were, in the crossfire of this war that's been going on between Scott and Jean."

"And you don't want to see him become a casualty?"

"I fear dark times for Logan on the horizon."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry, too much, Charles. He has that Reinhardt girl. And, more importantly, he has Trivelino. Someday, Mel Reinhardt will ride off into the sunset with the Hell's Angels. It may take ten or twenty years, but I will happen. And Jean Grey will reach the end of her second adolescence and return to staid, quiet middle-class monogamy with Scott Summers. But, should Trivelino find a way to live as long as Logan does, then she will be with him, every Wednesday, for the next 1,000 years."

Charles smiled at his old friend, his old adversary.

"You know, Erik, I think you're right."

**III: Logan**

Sometimes it surprised Logan that after all these years, close to a hundred, now, his old man still had the old homestead.

But, maybe when you got to be over 300 years old, you decided, well, a man has to settle in, someplace.

And the Old Man, he seemed to like his life well enough.

After WWII, he even had plumbing and electricity put in; Logan had helped pay for that with his veterans benefits.

Ten years, maybe more the Old Man told him, he spent a long time after the Big One on the mountain with the Old Man, working in the logging camp, and the biggest town he ever saw was Howlett.

He didn't remember much, except that he had decided he was never coming down off that mountain, again, and that it was peaceful and quiet.

The old place still gave him a good feeling, a peaceful feeling; his memories of it were largely missing and the ones he had were fuzzy, but they were what you called warm and fuzzy.

He had always been happy in this place, happy and safe.

Logan knew why he'd come back after World War II, and Itsu's death.

What he couldn't figure out was why he had ever left.

Sometimes, he thought that if he could remember who it was that coaxed him away, he'd gut them like a fish.

Because it was a good life, on the mountain.

You live that far off, you figure out who your friends are.

Hell, Logan had forgotten most of them, and he had only fuzzy, rudimentary memories of those years, at all, but he did remember that he got a visit from Eddie once a month, like clockwork.

All these years later, Eddie was still his friend, but he had found someone who was as good a friend to him as Eddie in Trivelino J. Napier.

She brought him up to Pa's, to recover from his mystery illness.

A few weeks in, and he was right as rain, and Pa was pestering him about two things.

One was him going up to the logging camp.

The way Pa saw it, he was never going to get his strength back, sitting on the porch and lying in bed, and bellying up to the bar at the saloon in Howlett.

The other wasn't.

"You know, Jimmy lad, Fritzy's daughter, she's a good girl, good as gold, but what you've got there is another man's woman, and you know it. She'll go along back to that Gypsy feller, someday, but until then you've got a decent woman in her. And I'll bet she'll be back to you, somewhere in-between. But I watched Mel grow up, she's a good girl. She won't do you wrong. Now that hoity-toity broad you've finally landed, the one that put your mind in a mess, she's no good for you, Jimmy, and she's another man's woman, too, but she ain't even playin' at bein' yours. That Jean Grey, she's playin' with you, boy, the way a cat plays with a mouse before she eats it. She'll go back to that chief of yours and even though you know she will and you think it won't, it'll break your heart. Now, Liv, she's a damn good woman. Tough and smart, fierce and strong. Now, she's your Eddie's woman, but not just his. She made an oath by you, boy, she's yours, as well. If there's a Wednesday in Hell and you're in it, she'll come to you there. Your friend Eddie's a smart man, he looked at her and said, well, broads come and go, but here's a good woman, a woman I can count on, a woman someday who can bear my sons and grow old with me. He's not such an old man he couldn't have the second act of his life go better than the first, but you've got half a century on him and he's smarter than you are about getting hold of the right kind of woman when he sees her an stickin' to her. The poor lamb will grow old long before you, Jimmy lad, but, wait till our Liv gets a little older and a little quieter, she'll give you and Eddie both some fine boys. And you can take your son, my grandson up to that cabin, and you can show him to be a man the way I showed you. That's what you want in a woman, Jimmy. A woman who'll give you children, a family of your own, and stick by you and them till the end of the world, no matter who or what comes and goes inbetween. That's the one, Jimmy, lad. And Fritzy's girl, you can trust her in the mean time. She'll never leave your life, altogether. Or the X-Men, I'll be bound. You stick with them, Jimmy lad. Half your folly in life is pickin' the wrong girl. " Old Black Tom pronounced.

"Jesus, Pa, how come you always know what I'm thinkin' on in the back of my mind?"

"Because I'm your Pa, Jimmy lad. I know you better'n you know yourself, especially after the way them government bastards fucked your mind all up. Now, here's the part where I tell you something you don't want to hear, because I'm your Pa and no one else will say it."

"I know what you're gonna say. I can't just forget about what's passed between me and Victor-"

"Victor? This ain't about Victor. Awww, I don't fret about the way you boys fight, you're still brothers and you're still young. Not even a hundred, either of you, but this is Victor's year to turn. I was full of piss and vinegar when I was a young pup, too. Time will show you that your brother is your brother, and if you have no sons or daughters, he's what you've got."

"Pa, how can you just forgive Victor for what he is and what he's done?"

Old Black Tom got angry.

"Goddamn it, Jimmy lad, he's my son! My blood! My firstborn. God knows I should have been a better man, then Victoria never would have taken him away, gone and married that monster who made your brother what he is. Victor's not all there, and what's there ain't right, but he's still my son, and I love him. What kind of man don't love his son, no matter what?"

"Or his brother?"

"You love your brother, Jimmy. You just hate him, too. But it's not Victor I wanted to talk to you about. You know, Victor who took you out of your bed while you were dying and saved your life. Again. This other woman, the one your love, your Miss Grey, goddamnit Jimmy, she don't treat you like a man. Or that other fella either, from what you've told me. Some women are like that. But that's what's made you sick, no magic or powers in it. If she was an ordinary himan what she's done to you wuld make you sick to your death. You're a man and you've been a man since you were 13 years old. Then, you fall in love with the wrong woman, as usual, but this one treats you like a fool. You don't need it, Jimmy lad. To be some woman's plaything one day out of the week, her little lapdog that she calls and dismisses. Tells you she loves you "as a friend". She means to be kind to you, Jimmy lad, and sure she has feeling for you, but it's cruel. It's cruel and whether she knows it or not, she's usin' you as a stalkin' horse to get the other one going. They'll expect you to dance at their wedding someday, and maybe you'll do it for the sake of your X-Men, but you don't want to dance at the wedding on Friday, and then have a stale piece of cake on Monday and have to hurry out in the middle of the night with your dirty clothes in your arms because there mustn't be a trace of you when the man of the house comes back on Tuesday. To his bed. To his woman. To your disgrace, Jimmy, and your humiliation. You're not some bastard gigolo. Think on it, lad."

Logan did think on it; in fact, Logan thought on a lot of things, working at the logging camp.

After a while, he went off to his own homestead, the one he'd built a little further up on the mountain from Pa's, with a mind someday to go and live there, peacefully.

Find himself a woman.

Raise a family.

Maybe he had found the woman.

Logan thought about it, about him and Eddie and Liv and a few kids, some of them his, some of them Eddie's, piled into a pickup truck, winding their way up the mountain to go see Pa and spend some time at the cabin.

Would that be so bad, would it be such a crime?

He sent Liv home; she had better things to do than babysit him, but she came back the next Wednesday, and the one after that, via Dr. Manhattan express.

Eddie came to see him once, and brought him a case of 100 year old Irish whiskey.

They got drunk, and talked about the Good Old Days.

Such that Logan remembered.

Now, Liv and his Pa were the only ones who knew about Logan's place he built in the woods, but when he built it, it was Jean he had in mind to live with him there.

Logan had time to think about what his father had said to him, and about his own feelings towards Jean.

He thought about little red-haired children tumbling around his feet, but this time they all had Jack Napier laughs.

It led him to make a fateful decision, one that would affect both him and the X-Men.

He had every intention of going back to the X-Mansion, with Napalm, the very next day, but on that day he woke up and found Napalm gone, but her truck still there.

She left him a cryptic note.

_Logan,_

_ Guess what? Vic fucked up. Big surprise, huh? Eddie's in Southeast Asia. Director Fury wants me to investigate/clean up. Jon is zapping me to New York. Why me, huh? Stay put. I'll call you._

_Liv._

Of course, it was no surprised to Logan that Sabretooth fucked up, what was a surprise to him was that Nick was sending Liv in to clean up his mess.

When Vic was in the loving arms of the US intelligence community, they usually sent him in to clean up his brother's messes.

But Nick was sending Liv?

Jesus, had his illness compromised him that much?

Well, Logan wasn't going to leave Napalm to clean up Sabretooth's mess, alone.

And he wasn't going to leave his madman brother alone to clean up his mess, himself.

His personal affairs were going to have to wait; he had work to do.

Logan packed up his knapsack, got in Liv's truck, and started the long drive home.

He hoped he could get there before anything too awful happened.

**IV: Victor**

**Thruway Tavern**

Sabretooth was coming out of the men's room when he heard his woman scream.

"Get your hands off me! No! Stop, goddamn it…"

She might have said more, but Victor didn't hear it.

He was too suffused with rage.

He'd got his woman back, and some dirty mutant-hating sons of bitches thought they were going to hurt her?

All they were going to do was die.

Hard.

With a roar, he launched himself into battle.

The first man he laid his hands on, he literally tore him in half, and for the second, he grabbed a pool cue, broke it, and impaled the unfortunate fellow on the broken end.

He seized the third man by the throat, and held him high in the air.

"You thought that would be a good time, huh, asshole? You picked the wrong woman, pal."

The terrified man hung from Victor Creed's fist which was wrapped around his throat, his legs kicking wildly in the air.

The terrified man's unfortunate compatriot broke a chair over Sabretooth's back.

Victor lashed out with his left hand, puncturing the chair's thrower's chest.

He closed his fist around the man's spine, and partially ripped it out through the hole in his chest.

Some of the patrons not involved in the fight decided to discreetly leave, but most of the Thruways' regulars wouldn't miss a mutant brawl for the world.

A good deal of them did, however, take shelter behind the bar.

Bets were exchanged.

Victor turned his attention to the man in his right hand, only to find that the pathetic bastard had died of fright.

He dropped the dead man on the ground.

Then, the door flew open, and the last of the five men who had incurred Sabretooth's wrath came in with a double barrelled 12-gauge shotgun.

"Take this, you mutie son of a bitch!" he screamed, and let Victor have it with both barrels.

The force of the blast sprayed fine bits of Sabretooth all over the room, and knocked him against two tables, breaking them.

The man with the shotgun laughed, that is until the woman who started the trouble tapped him on the shoulder.

Apparantly, she had claws, too.

Big bony ones about a foot long that came out from between her knuckles.

"You really shouldn't have done that." She told him.

Then, with a single powerful swipe, she knocked his head off.

It went flying and landed on the bar.

The regular patrons cheered.

Meanwhile, Sabretooth was struggling back to his feet.

The woman went to his side.

"I took care of the last one. Don't move, Victor. You're not quite healed, yet."

Victor looked down.

The wound was closed, and although he was black and blue around the midsection, and in a lot of pain, he knew he was pretty much good to go.

"I'm alright."

He sheathed his bloody claws, and, as his rage left him, he looked at the bodies lying strewn all over the bar which was empty but for the regulars, who were exchanging money.

"I better get my end of that!" Creed bawled.

"What, you think we'd cheat you, Vic?" the bartender chuckled.

He drew a pint of Guinness and put it on the bar.

"On the house, Vic." He said.

Sabretooth went to claim his beer.

The head was still on the bar.

"Here's to you, asshole. Happy days." He said to the head.

That got him another laugh, and he drank his drink down in one long swallow.

It hit him hard, but that was good, and the bartender drew him another.

Then, it occurred to him that this was not good.

Not at all.

"Shit." He muttered.

Normally, this would not be a problem for him.

This would be more like, you know, your regular average Wednesday.

Victor returned to his table.

As he wiped some of the blood from his hands and his arms with a rapidly-reddening white towel, he made a very astute observation.

"Stripe, I think I fucked up."

"Really, Vic? Are you sure? Goddamnit, it's just like Logan said! That you were going to stick your claws or your dick someplace they didn't belong, and end up fucking everything up! Well, you did it, didn't you?"

Rogue was angry.

That was alright, Victor liked her when she was angry.

"What did you want me to do? Let those fucking pricks do whatever they wanted to you?"

"I could have handled it! You did see me knock that idiot's head off, didn't you? I didn't need you to go into a berserk killing frenzy! We have to think. Because I know what's going to happen to you if Professor Xavier finds out about this. And I know what's going to happen to me if he finds out about us."

"Jesus, Rogue, it's a free country, and you're old enough. What the fuck can he do?"

"Kick me out on mah ass!"

"For what? Didn't he ever see the mark I put on your shoulder? It couldn't be any plainer."

"I used to cover it up."

"You did what? After everything I did for you? I trained you, I taught you, I fuckin' made you, and you're ashamed to show my mark on you?"

Victor bared his fangs, and his claws.

"If that's the way you want it, Victor, I'm ready when you are!"

_Snikt!_

Rogue did the same.

They would have launched themselves at each other, but they were interrupted by the arrival of the 7th Cavlary.

Trivelino J. Napier, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D Covert, Level 10, and a crew of cleaners.

"Alright you two, break it up. I got work to do here."

Red wasn't too shocked by the scene of carnage that she beheld, and she was not surprised to see Rogue and Sabtretooth together.

"Well, Vic, I see you been doin' that voodoo that you do so well. How many stiffs we got, here? Five?"

"Four. No, five. Stripe did that one."

Victor indicated the head.

"Oh, a team effort. Nice date. Fuck is that some guy's spine? That's' some grisly shit, Vic. Hiya Rogue. I see you two have effected a little reconciliation. Congrats. Okay Vic. Explain to me why this shit does not violate the terms of your agreement with Colonel Blake, and why I shouldn't pretty much send your ass to the Phantom Zone."

"Hey, look, for once, Red, I'm inna clear. Rogue, here, she's 21, plenty old enough to be here with me, havin' a beer. That's what we were doin'. Havin' a coupla beers. And these fucks hadda come and start with their shit about us bein' muties."

"Yeah, well, I don't like assholes in bars givin' me shit, but I just beat the fuck out of 'em, I don't kill 'em."

"You didn't let me finish, Red. I did beat the shit outa one of them. The one without his fuckin' head, over there. That same fuckin' prick, he shot me in the chest with a 12 gauge. Both barrels. Look at my shirt all torn up and all the blood!"

"Yeah, and you've still got a bruise there. And your whole chest is all lumpy with buckshot. I'll bet that hurts like a motherfucker."

"It does. Anyway, after I pounded the shit out of that fucker, I figured that settled it, and a little while later, I went to the john. So I come out, and there's all five of 'em, they're tryin' to get Rogue onto the pool table."

"What were they gonna do to her? As soon as she touched them they'd be dead. Even without her claws." Liv replied.

"I tried to tell him that." Rogue interrupted.

"Good fuckin' luck. They don't care if you can handle it, yourself. Coupla weeks ago, me an Eddie are at a Stones gig, and some jerk-off standin' behind us keeps botherin me. Rubbin' up against me. Pinchin' my ass. Grabbin' my tits. Finally, he sticks his whole hand down the back of my pants. I yelled in surprise, then turned around to tell him if he tried that again he'd pull back a stump, but Eddie got to him first. By the time a coupla roadies came and dragged the guy away, they had to call an ambulance to come to the Garden." She explained.

"See, Red? You think if you were in someplace with Jimmy or the Sarge and they came outa the can and some guys were tryna get you on the pool table so's they could gang you that they wouldn't go nuts, even though they both know you coulda killed them all?" Sabretooth asked.

"True. But I got no way of knowing that's what happened. For all I know, these guys called you a mutie, and you greased them, and Rogue's backing your story up because, let's face it, when you lose all you got and you manage to find it again, you're gonna do what you have to to make sure you keep it. And like the bartender here hasn't learned to shut up and do what the mutant masks tell him too. I drink here with Logan all the time. I know that. So, what it comes down to, is I have to take your word for it. You two. Rogue an' Sabretooth. The Brotherhood's answer to Bonnie an' Clyde."

"Hey, we did a couple of missions that didn't happen with you and the Sarge, don't get high and mighty on me. Besides, since when have I ever lied about anything I did?"

Napalm looked around at the mess.

"Vic, you don't give enough of a shit about what you do to lie. Anyway, the good news is, I ran a check on these guys, on my way here from the City. They were some lowlives from Philly. Small time hoods. They got a couple of beefs outstanding for ganging chicks in bars. Two different chicks in two different bars. So your story checks out. But this is it, Vic. I don't care if you wax the Devil himself because he's tryna put his cold knobbly dick in your ass, you leave one more corpse behind you, and you are fucked, my friend. Take this like it came from Eddie's mouth and not mine, because he said it, foist. You two better stick to drinkin' at home. Now, when the cleaners are done, they're gonna clean you two, and take you home. Me, I got paperwork to fill out. Lots and lost of paperwork. Fuck him once for me, Rogue, I sure as hell ain't gettin' any, tonight."

One of the cleaners came up to Sabretooth with a garment bag.

"We brought an extra set of fatigues for you, Major Creed." He said.

"Thanks, pal."

* * *

When they got back to the X-Mansion, it was quiet and dark.

Sabretooth didn't let on to Rogue, but his belly was burning like there was fire in it.

Something was fucked up.

"Rogue, why don'tcha go upstairs and warm up the bed for me. I gotta coupla things I gotta do."

"You're really hurt, aren't you, Victor?"

"Who, me? I'm never really hurt. I just gotta go pay a little call on Dr. McCoy."

Hank was occupied with some broad, so he wasn't too happy about being pried away from her by Sabretooth, but he knew his job.

Meanwhile, it took Victor a great deal of effort to walk to the Infirmary.

"So, was it buckshot?" Beast asked, as Sabretooth lay down on the table.

Slowly.

"Buckshot. I feel like my whole fuckin' chest an' my guts are on fire."

"I'm not surprised."

Beast felt around his chest.

"Well?"

"I'm going to have to cut you open and take the buckshot out."

"That sounds painful as fuck."

"Well, I know I can't knock you out, but I can dose you with a lot of morphine. A whole lot of morphine."

"Does it have to be with a needle? I hate needles."

"What a coincidence. So does Logan."

Beast was just shooting him up when the Infirmary doors flapped open, dramatically, and there was Jimmy.

"What? You're on the table! Holy shit, what the fuck happened to you?"

"Buckshot. 12 gauge. Double barrels. Took both at close range. How you doin', Jimmy?"

"Great. Just great, Victor. I drove all day thinkin' you unleashed hell on the place, an' I was comin' back to bodies, and you're the one on the table."

Beast came back from the other side of the room with a tray of surgical implements.

"What are you doin with that, Hank?"

"I have to cut him open and take out the buckshot. Ball by ball."

Logan winced.

"Is that morphine workin' on you, Vic?"

"Nope. You think you can knock me out, Jimmy?"

"The easy way, or the hard way?"

"Easy way. I got enough to heal from."

Logan made a fist, pulled it back, and punched Sabretooth with all his might, square between the eyes.

"OK, Hank, he'll be out for about an hour."

**II: Logan**

Logan pulled up a chair and sat down.

"Have you developed a sudden interest in surgery, Logan?"

"Nope. If Creed wakes up ahead of time with your hands in his guts, he's not gonna be a happy man. I better stick around."

"If you're going to stick around, put some gloves on and give me a hand."

Logan took a look.

"Jesus, that's a lot of buckshot! It's better for you to take it out. When ya take that much buckshot to the chest, you're coughin' it up and shittin' it out for a week. The coughin' ain't so bad, but shittin' buckshot? That's pretty rough."

"It's really not a lot of fun to be you, is it, Logan?"

"Nope, Hank. Sometimes it's a real bitch."

The scalpel broke.

"Shit! Logan?"

_Snikt!_

"You're the doctor, Hank. Just grab hold of the sides of the claw, and I'll let you move my hand."

They worked in silence, for awhile.

"So, how are you feeling?"

"Good."

"And it's alright with Charles that you're back here?"

"Hank, I don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. I know what my problem was."

"Did you decide what you were going to do about it?"

"Yeah."

"Do you mind if I put my two cents in?"

"Go ahead."

"I think Jean should have never dragged you into it. Anybody who's ever shit buckshot has enough problems."

Logan got a kick out of that one.

He laughed.

**X-Institute. Common Room. Three Weeks Later**

**III: Victor**

It was today.

Today was the day.

Some people might have thought it odd that part of Vic Creed's decision to try the white hat on again was Chuck X's TV set, but, the man did have the biggest TV it was humanly possible to buy.

And today, today was the day he had been dreaming of.

Chance or no chance, anybody who got between Old Black Tom's sonny boy Victor and the biggest television set you could buy, tonight, was going to get a shiny new bright red asshole.

Because tonight was the first game of the first series of the Stanley Cup Finals, and the Toronto Maple Leafs were playing.

Between him and Jimmy, Rogue got hooked on hockey years ago, and things being what they were, he wasn't surprised when he came to the couch with his case of beer and his two bags of potato chips to find Yukon Mel and Rogue already there, opening up a box containing a large pizza with a huge bowl of popcorn.

Mel put a fifth of Scotch on the table, as well.

"You share with me, man, I'll share with you."

Mel was never the slightest bit afraid of him.

Then again, she was Jimmy's girl, she was from Howlett, and her father had been Pa's boss, so she had grown up with Old Black Tom, too.

He supposed it was all just Jimmy lad, and Vic, my boy, to her.

"Deal." Sabretooth agreed.

Something, however, was glaringly absent.

"Where the fuck is Jimmy?"

Mel snorted, and crushed the empty beer can in her hand into powder.

"It's Monday. That's where Logan is."

Rogue shook her head.

"Monday? Monday, my ass, it's the finals! And the Leafs are playing." Victor insisted.

"Lemme tell you a story man. Dig this. Last year, the Leafs were in the finals, too. And me an' Logan, we're all laid out. We got beer, soda, chips, pizza, everything, man. Our shit was laid out. An alla sudden, Logan goes crazy. He starts swearin' an' foamin' at the mouth, yunno how when he gets real mad, he actually foams at the fuckin' mouth?"

"Oh yeah. Pa does that. Jimmy's got Pa's temper. Even I don't get that mad."

"So, a coupla minutes later, the emergency sirens go off. Man, every cat on the team is suited up, an' I figure, well, they might need somebody who can throw trucks around. And we go out on the lawn. And there are Sentinel parts strewn all around it, not to mention bits of C of H cats. Smoke everwhere. Wires sparkin'. Blood on the grass. Shit is on fuckin' fire, ya dig? An' right through the middle of it comes Logan. His hair is smokin' an he's in blood up to his elbows, an' his clothes are all torn up and smokin' and burnt. An' everybody's just lookin' at him. And Cyke, you know he never swears, he says 'Holy shit, Logan, what the fuck' An' Logan says, 'Not during the fuckin' game, Cyke. Not during the fuckin' game."

"It's true, Victor. Every word." Rogue verified.

Victor roared with laughter.

Literally.

"That's Jimmy! That's my crazy fuckin' brother!"

"I know, man. But now, it's like, there's this pod person in his place. After the game, you and me, we gotta go up to the Thruway. Have a talk. Ya dig?"

"You're tellin' me that my brother, James John Logan Howlett, is going to miss a hockey final over a broad?" Victor asked.

"Victor, I'm tellin' you that Jean Grey gets Logan stuffed so far up her nasty man-eating cooze that it takes me half of Tuesday to pull him out again, and I can pick up a school bus and throw a pickup truck." Mel replied.

Rogue laughed behind her hand.

"Mel, really!"

"Well, it's true, goddammit!"

"Yeah. We gotta talk. After the game. You comin' Stripe?"

"Victor, I can't stand going to that dive with Logan, and I like it less going with you, especially after the last time. When I have to swat a man's head off while you're leaking blood, guts and buckshot all over the floor, that's enough for me. I'm never setting foot in that place again. I'll be right here."

**Thruway Tavern. Later that Night**

Yukon Mel Reinhardt was mad.

Goddamn mad.

And the drunker she was, the madder she got.

Victor was definitely seeing the Hell's Angel in this cute little blond biker chick.

"That lousy fuckin' cunt! I'd like to toss that bitch so high in the fuckin' air they'd have to get fuckin' Superman or Dr. Manhattan to go an' get her! Jean Grey this, and Jean Grey that, and ain't she the grooviest chick in the goddamn world! That fuckin whore bitch cunt!"

"All three, huh?"

"Fuck yeah! She's a bitch, all right! I know you don't dig Cyke, and he is a real square, but he's a good dude, man. He really is. But Jean, she treats him like he's a fuckin' dog. Like her fuckin' lapdog. Finally, she beats the man down so far, he can't hardly get outa bed. Yellin' at him. Talkin' to him like he's her kid in front of people. Talkin' down to him, alla time. She broke the dude, Victor. I watched her fuckin' do it. Took him down from a leader of men to a guy who'd burst into tears if he spilled a bottle of Coke. An' a whore? Well, when poor old Scooter wasn't takin' care of her business, anymore, ya know what she did?"

"What?"

"She went after Liv's men! Can you believe that? Liv's, like, her good friend, and what does she do? Next time the Comedian shows up to pick Liv up, Jean fuckin' throws herself at him. An' I mean throws. She tossed herself down the front steps so that her matching sexy underwear was showing, an' oh help and that shit. Naturally, Eddie Blake's not that dumb. The cat is smart enough to figure her trip out, and he blows her off. But then, she flings herself at Tony Stark. I don't doubt her fucked her, but yunno, he wasn't returning her calls. That's a fuckin' whore."

"What she did to Jimmy?"

"That makes her a card-carrying cunt. He had it so bad for her, man when I met him, dude was a wreck. A fuckin' wreck. Because she liked to torture him. Tease him, lead him on. She did it alla time. Of course, as soon as she crooks her finger at him, he was there. She used that, man. She knew he had this thing for her, and she used it. He tells her he loves her. She tells him he's her best friend. He tells her he needs her. She says she'll see him Mondays. And on Mondays, when she isn't tryna ride him alla way to Frisco, she treats him worse than she treated Cyke. Logan's a proud man. He's a real man. He can't take it. Bein' treated that way. She's breakin' him down, and it hurts him so bad, I can hardly fix him with all my powers. I love that man, Vic. I really do. Not like Jean, who's just using him till she figures out how to reel Scooter in again. An' Logan loves me. For real, not some fantasy bullshit. I can't stand to see him like this. You're his brother. Tell me what to do."

Victor took a thoughtful sip of his beer.

"We can't kill her, right?"

"I've seen her explode people like Dr. Manhattan does. We can't."

"Then you can't do shit, baby. My brother, he likes the wrong kinda women. He's not happy unless he's got his balls in a vice. Every broad he's ever with hasta be a freewheeling, backstabbing, no good cunt who acts all sweet and wounded like a damsel in distress. They use him, they abuse him, they rip his guts out. You tricked him because you turned out to be more Hell's Angel than Nymph. An' Napalm, well, she got him by becoming his buddy and a fellow mask before she pulled off her pants and showed him she has a pussy and not a cock. But other than that? Whores, bitches and cunts."

Victor finished his beer, but he was on a roll.

"Take that Sliver Fox broad. The one he's still pissin' an' moanin' about. Was she a fuckin' backstabbin' cunt! My brother, he moves her off the reservation, where she's an orphan without a pot to piss in. A titless wonder. Moves her into our home, yunno? The bitch eats from my table an' sleeps under my roof, livin' from the sweat offa me an' my little brother's brows. Then, when Pa comes back, an we're all off to the Klondike, well Jimmy's gotta take the squaw with us. Kinda like takin' fuckin' sand to the beach. But, by this time, she's grown some tits and ass, and trust me, that little flea couldn't wait to spread them all over town and find a bigger dog to jump on than my hairy, short, cunt-struck baby brother. I tried to tell him. You know what he did? He left us. He left his Pa, and his brother, and our claim, left his fuckin' blood, an' went and built this whore a cabin. He was all of 21, at the time. Shit, he was just a goddamn kid with a stiff dick and deaf ears. The stupid little bastard. He'd work himself ragged to support her. She lived like a queen, he worked like a dog. Well, I went up there one day, to see my brother, on his birthday, and try to get him to come home with me. I mean our poor old father was pushin' three hundred, and Jimmy was just breakin' Pa's heart. We even woulda let him bring the squaw back. Pa figured she'd slow Jimmy her true colours soon enough. She sure fuckin' did. I hardly had my hat off and my foot in the door, and the bitch was on me! I mean, there's Jimmy, in a snowstorm, on his birthday, walkin' through drifts that hadda be up to his waist, gettin' firewood, and this fuckin' cunt, she was all over me? Well, I knew what I hadda do."

"I think I know this part."

"I did fuck her. And I did kill her. But I didn't rape her. She wanted it. And she got it, too."

Victor laughed a little into his drink.

Then, his face darkened.

"That fuckin' cunt! She took my brother away from me, forever! You know people like us don't geta whole lot in this fuckin' world, just ta have some cunt steal your brother away from you! And you wanna hear the best part! The bitch wasn't dead! She was a mutant, too. Me an' Jimmy, we met up with her when we were workin' with the G. And he was so happy to see her. And she just looked at him like he was shit and you know what? That was my fault, too. I didn't even fuckin' kill the fuckin' whore, and he's still mad at me! The little fuckin' runt! Mel, what you gotta do, is you just gotta hope that someday Jean Grey just pushes him too far."

"You know what, Victor? I think I see where you're coming from with Logan. It's fucked up, but I see it."

"Yeah, well he's fucked up, too. More fucked up than I could ever hope to be."

"That's what Tom said. He said Logan was always the crazy one. He told me that, when Logan and me were there, in the summer. He said he never worries about you, but he worries about Logan all the time."

"Yeah, well, so do I. Welcome to the fuckin' club. Have another drink."

**I: Logan**

Despite his good intentions, when Monday rolled around, Logan didn't have his talk with Jean.

Nor did he talk to her on the next few Mondays.

And, whatever she was doing with Charles, she wasn't, well, sucking the soul out of him., anymore, so he just let it ride.

As for Jean, she acted like nothing was any different.

"Look at this, Logan! You put another hole in my carpet!"

Jean leaned over him to open the window, and he patted her on the ass, and she slapped his hand away.

"And can't you switch to cigarettes? You and those big, stinky cigars. And it would be really, really nice if you wouldn't leave your calling cards all over the room, so that anybody who doesn't know about our arrangement wouldn't find out! Ashtray full of cigar butts. Your dirty shorts under the bed. Beer cans. Pull tabs. Beer bottles. Why don't you just piss on something, and mark this as your territory?"

Jean went into the bathroom, and came out with a can of Woolite carpet cleaner and a scrub brush.

"And if you fall asleep in my bed one more time and spill beer and Cheetos all over the floor, I won't let you sleep here."

"Are you about done, darlin'? Because I ain't exactly findin' your bitchin' endearin'."

"Oh yeah? Well I'm not finding your chauvinistic slob act endearing, either."

While Jean was cleaning up, and taking another shower, Logan picked up the clicker, and turned the TV from Masterpiece Theatre to the Cup finals with the Maple Leafs.

The game was almost over, and he wanted to catch the end.

He knew exactly what Cyke was talking about, and what he meant by The Great and Powerful Miss Jean Grey.

_And I am risking my sanity and my health for this woman, because…?_

Jean came in when there were thirty seconds left in the game, the score was tied, and the Leafs had the puck, and she turned the channel back, telepathically.

Logan erupted.

"What the fuck did you do that for! Change it back! Change it back!"

"I _hate _sports!"

Logan leapt out of bed, dove for the TV and changed the channel back in time to see the Leafs fans going mad and to hear the announcers talking about one of the greatest ending moments of a hockey game, ever.

Logan felt like sinking his claws into his own head.

"I missed it? I missed it! Dammit, Jeannie, I spent half the afternoon and most of the evenin' givin' you all the trips to the moon you don't get all week from Cyke, an' the other half listenin' to you bitchin' about everythin' I wear, everything I do, and everythin' I like, missed the whole game an' you can't even let me watch the end of the game in peace? Can I have my balls back an' borrow a needle an' thread to stick 'em back on?"

"Logan, you're probably my best friend in the world, and I love you, in that capacity, and you are, hands down, the best lover I've ever had, not to mention one of the finest masks in the superhero business, so don't take it wrong when I tell you that not only are you a 19th century chauvinistic slob, but you are also a complete fucking asshole, and a sawed-off little prick!"

For a minute, Logan was at a total loss.

He just blinked.

Then, he got out of bed and put on his pants.

"I'll go watch the news, downstairs. Maybe they'll show the last ply during the sportscast."

"You do that. I need to fumigate this place."

* * *

Logan sniffed around the couch, dispiritedly as he ate the last slice of pizza.

That asshole brother of his, and Mel, and Rogue, they watched the whole game.

On the big TV.

He bet they had a good time.

Logan walked into the kitchen, where he found Cyke getting cosy with a sic pack of Bud.

Logan usually didn't drink American beer as he figured it was like making love in a canoe.

Fucking close to water.

But, any port in a storm.

"Mind if I join you, Cyke?"

"Nope. Pull up a beer and sit down. So, what did she do to you now?"

Logan told his sad story.

Scott shook his head.

"And you said nothing. Right? Am I right? You felt like kicking in the TV and calling her a stupid fucking cunt, but you just said something dumb and left with your tail between your legs, right? Am I right?"

"Cyke, I didn't know you said words like that."

"I did it, once. Called her a, you know. What I just said. It felt good. I felt like the king of the world. But that's what happened, right?"

Logan opened another bottle of beer.

"Yeah. You gonna tell me you told me so?"

"Are you kidding? Not now. Not now that we're in this, together. The two of us, at the mercy of the Great and Powerful Miss Jean Grey. I love her, God only knows. Most of the time, she's a wonderful woman. Beautiful. Talented."

"Fucks like a mink."

"Yeah. She should change her middle name to Hoover. But, sometimes Jean's a real Ice Queen. A free-wheeling castrating witch bitch who can make any man feel like he's a stupid little boy. If you want to be with her, you have to live with it. Just make sure you have a woman who makes you feel like a man. Or else you'll lose your balls, completely. You know what saved Jean and me? My Monday nights with Emma. I don't get it, Logan. Emma doesn't crawl into my mind with me. And she treats me like a man. Not like a little boy. And Mel isn't breaking your mind, and she thinks the sun rises and sets in your Levis. And Napalm, Jesus, if she could find a way to live as long as you will, she'd be at your side every Wednesday for the next millennium. What the hell is wrong with us? Being with Jean compromises our very sanity. And neither one of us has the balls to tell her where to get off the bus. That settles it. I'm gonna have to start drinking more beer."

Logan put his beer down.

"You know what I'm gonna do, Cyke?"

"No. Tell me."

"I'm gonna go up there, and I'm gonna knock Jeannie off her high horse. Not just for me. An' not just for you. I'm gonna do it for every guy who's ever listened to a woman bitch about how she wants a sensitive man an' then calls him a queer. For every guy who's ever had a woman tell him she wants a real man and then calls him an MCP."

"For all the times she made me hold her purse in public?"

"That's right, Cyke. For alla times she made you hold her purse in public. That just ain't fuckin' right. You know what's been wrong with me? And with you?"

"What's that, Logan?"

"We're men, goddamnit! Fuck that, we're better than men, we're mutants! Fuck that, too, we're better than mutants, we're X-Men! An' we been actin' like scared little boys. Well, not me. Not anymore. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever again."

Logan stood up, and his chair scraped behind him.

Cyke raised his beer bottle.

"You're the real thing, Logan."

"Well, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

"You're right, Logan. You are absolutely right."

"Logan! What the hell are you doing just barging in-"

Logan slammed the door, angrily.

"Shut the hell up and sit the hell down!" he barked.

That was the first time he'd ever raised his voice to her, and Jean was shocked enough to listen.

"Now you listen to me, my sweet li'le darlin', and you better mind what I say! You wanted a man, a Real Man, and you got one! Not that you didn't have one before, but Cyke, he was a helluva lot more of a nice guy than me! It took him damn near ten years to call you a free-wheeling bitch, and it's only taken me six months! You wanna nice little fairycake to pussyfoot around here smellin' like a rose an' emptyin' the ashtrays, an' perfumin' the air an' tiptoein' over the carpets? Go get yourself a gay friend. But, you gotta take the lumps with the good, cupcake! You wanna get fucked within' an inch of your life? You wanna rip the sheets and bite your pillow and scream your pretty red head off? Then you gotta put up with a man bein' a man! That means cigar butts, and beer, an' Dirty Harry movies an' sports an' dirty shorts! That goes for me, an' double for Cyke! You did everythin' to that man besides chop off his balls and put 'em in your jewellery box, and I'll be god damned if you're gonna do it to me! We risk our lives and our sanity to be with you, so the least you can do is treat us like we're men, goddamnit! So, you put that Lysol down, turn on my game, an' leave me watch it in peace! And shut the goddamn window. It's cold in here!"

Jean hardly blinked.

"Are you done?" she asked.

"Yes." Logan replied.

"Great. Get out of my room before I blast you through the wall."

Logan turned the channel to the news, shut the window, lit a cigar, and sat down beside her on the bed.

"What the fuck are you doing, you sawed-off little prick?" Jean demanded.

"Watchin' the news, darlin'."

He took a drag on the cigar, reached under the bed, and opened a can of beer.

"Wanna sip?"

Jean did not blast him through the wall.

She opened the door before she telepathically threw him out on his ass.

Logan picked himself up, dusted himself off, and, all the sudden, that was it.

The end of all things.

Hot tears crowded into Logan's eyes, and he choked a sob in his throat.

He clutched his meaty hand to his hairy barrel chest; there was real pain there, like he could feel his heart breaking.

Because, he knew.

Not only that Jean would never love him the way he loved her, but that his father, and that son of a bitch no good brother of his had been right.

All along.

The torment he was feeling quickly turned into rage, and Logan got back to his feet with a howl of outrage that brought everyone's attention to the hallway outside Jean's room.

Wolverine had taken all he could stand, and he couldn't stand anymore.

Even Jean realised that she had gone too far.

"Logan…"

"Oh no! Its' too late for that shit! Alright, that's it! Baby, that is the fuckin' living end of this bullshit! I gave up my dignity for you, my honor, my health, even my goddamn mind! I gave you my heart, and my soul, and my love, and this is what I get in return! Well, you know what, Miss Great and Powerful Jean Grey? You want a feral mutant? Sabretooth's rooms are two doors down from yours, you better see if you can get him to throw a few fucks into you come next Monday, because I won't be doin' it, anymore! You find yourself a new fool, woman! Because I'm not a fool. I'm a man! Do you hear me in there, goddamn you, you, you _stupid fuckin' cunt_? **I'M A MAN**!"

_**SNIKT!**_

Logan popped all of his claws, and roaring like a wild animal, he shredded the open door.

Jean was in shock.

"You know what I'm gonna do, now? I'm gonna over to the Thruway, I'm gonna get so drunk my eyes cross, then I'm gonna pick a fight with the ten toughest sons of bitches in the place, an' screw alla their broads on the bar while they're lyin' there in a heap, bleedin' to death! An' after that I'm gonna get on my bike and ride someplace and do it again, an; again, an' again, until I rin outa money, gas, an' steam! Cos I'm the goddamn Wolverine!"

Logan stormed down the stairs, and passed Scott bounding up the steps.

"You're movin' pretty fast, huh, Cyke?" Logan joked.

But painfully.

"Are you going to be alright, Logan?"

"Sure, Cyke. I'll be fine. I just gotta go blow off some steam. You take her. I give up."

"Well, it's like you always say. You got to get in where you can fit in. Her defences are down. Time for me to get the upper hand." Scott whispered.

"She's all yours, Cyke. Good luck."

"Yeah. I'll need it. Okay, I'm gonna chew you out, now. Don't take it seriously."

Then, he assumed his most Fearless Leaderly stance.

"Logan! I am surprised at you! I thought if there was any of this kind of goings-on, it would be Sabretooth's work, not yours! How dare you talk to my fiancée like that! I ought to blast your hairy ass to Hell for that!"

Scott pushed past Logan and bounded up to the landing.

"Come on, Jean. You can't stay here, you've got no door. And Logan's trashed your place. Come stay with me, tonight. In our old room. I'll take care of you…"

Logan shook his head.

"I'm beginnin' to see why he's in charge, here." He said.

And then he was off to the Thruway, intent on going and raising the kind of Hell that would live in infamy for the rest of his life.

Which could possibly be another eight or nine hundred years.

_(Author's Note: Wow. This shit is getting heavy. Will there be more? Sure. In one more chapter, we'll wrap this all up. Except, well, there's one loose end. Victor. If you want to know what's going on with him and Rogue, and how Logan's feeling about that, click on my profile and check out Soap Gets In Your Fangs, Too_)


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